


Not A Boy

by Valkyrien



Series: What's Unexpected Should Never Come As A Surprise [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 'I Do What I Want' Is Not A Useful Explanation In Steve's Book, AU, Being Barely-An-Adult Is Exhausting And Confusing, Except For When He Does, How Anyone Copes With It Is A Mystery, Like Walking Blindly Through A Desert As Someone Feeds You Chocolate While Robbing You, M/M, No One Knows Why Loki Does Any Damn Thing Not Even Loki Himself, Overbearing Brother-Types Complicating Life FTW, Previously Unconfronted Issues, That Awkward Moment When No One Really Knows What's Going On But Everyone Wants To Think They Do, Would Someone Please Explain To Steve What A 'Casual Relationship' Is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-18 21:29:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 68,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkyrien/pseuds/Valkyrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like anyone else his age who doesn't really fit in and has reached that difficult transitionary stage between awkwardly-grown child and almost-adult, Steve's not really a part of anything going on around him, and he knows it. That doesn't stop Bucky trying to involve him in things, and it certainly doesn't stop Steve from becoming involved in something he never envisioned happening to someone like him with someone he barely knows who isn't so much making up the rules as he drags Steve along but deliberately subverting the existing ruleset for this kind of thing as Steve understands it.</p>
<p>Perhaps Steve should have known better than to tag along to parties he never really wanted to go to in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Honestly

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be one side of a story that will be fully presented in a series. The two sides will run parallel to one another although not necessarily in a chronological fashion. One side will focus on Steve, the other on Loki.
> 
> Essentially, Steve meets Loki and falls into a relationship with him that is as difficult to define and as hard to pin down as Loki is himself. To someone as straightforward and steady as Steve, this is of course something of an adjustment and quite the shift in mindset. Throw in mutual passion, previously unconfronted issues, and an inability on both sides to correctly address either thing at the right time in the appropriate way, and you get a surprisingly private kind of drama.

 

 

 

   It’s another one of those nights.

 

 

   The music’s too loud, too vulgar, and reverberates in his head almost painfully, making it hard to think.

 

 

   Everyone’s a little too drunk to really talk to, and none of them seem too interested in _talking_ to anyone in the first place, not if their behaviour’s anything to go by, and it’s hard to know where he’s allowed to rest his eyes in this veritable sea of twisting partially-clothed bodies he isn’t really familiar with.

 

 

   Not that he’s adrift in the middle of it all, no. He’s standing on the periphery of a circle of friends that don’t really belong to him, listening to a half-shouted conversation Bucky’s conducting with some people he knows and Steve is vaguely acquainted with by now about something Steve’s not really interested or involved in.

 

 

   He really wishes he was at home doing just about anything else right now.

 

 

   “Who is that?” Stark asks over the noise and across what someone else was saying, and heads turn to see who he’s looking at, because for some reason Steve doesn’t really understand, where Stark goes others seem unable not to follow. It doesn’t really appeal to him to be one of those people, but because Steve is already there and he may as well take part, he looks as well.

 

 

   Steve catches glimpses of inky hair and pale limbs and textures he can’t immediately place or reconcile himself to having actually seen, between other bodies in motion but not part of them. It’s not much but it’s enough to give him some idea, and to give his gut some other ideas, mostly along the lines of _‘yes’_ and _‘now do something about it’_.

 

 

   Thor cranes his neck to get a proper look and seems rather embarrassed when he does, although from what Steve has observed _‘prone to embarrassment’_ isn’t really the first thing you’d associate with Thor, and dutifully informs present company that,

 

 

   “It’s my brother,” but adds, “Sorry,” as though that were somehow a Bad Thing, and Steve is pleased when Tony waves a hand and says,

 

 

   “Not a problem,” but he bristles inwardly when, “you should never apologise for an ass like that,” is tacked on to the end of it because Steve knows how Stark means that and it’s not a Good Thing at all.

 

 

   He doesn’t get a chance to say so, not that anyone would pay attention if he did, because there’s a sudden rise in the prevalence of long, pale limbs and inky hair and large, soulful, wonderfully green eyes right in front of their little group, and Steve’s gut wholeheartedly approves and doesn’t really get why Thor looks so uncomfortable with this development and says,

 

 

   “Loki,” so stiffly. Loki either doesn’t care about his brother’s tone or is used to it, and just tells Thor,

 

 

   “I’ve come for your keys.” His voice is surprisingly clear in this muddied, offensive loudness, despite not being pitched to compete with the noise. Steve has to struggle not to let his baser instincts approve the words,

 

 

   “You can have mine,” and is very relieved when he manages not to speak at all.

 

 

   Meanwhile Thor is instructing Loki on where to retrieve his keys – his jacket pocket, in the hall somewhere, or maybe the living room, he’s not sure – and Steve interrupts and says,

 

 

   “I’ll show you. I hung up his jacket.”

 

 

   Loki’s eyes scan Steve thoroughly and seem to find him acceptable for the task, because he smiles a little on,

 

 

   “Why thank you,” and follows Steve readily through the crowds completely ignoring Stark’s ill-mannered whistling.

 

 

   They’re almost at the front door where a multitude of jackets are strewn, hung, and draped on to and over everything, when Steve feels a hand on his shoulder and realises a little too late that he’s been pulled into the hall bathroom and the door is now locked and Loki is kissing him like it’s all he really wants in this life, and the bottom drops right out of Steve’s stomach and he finds himself opening up under Loki’s ministrations without a second thought.

 

 

   So beautifully thoughtless is he rendered that he’s almost shocked when Loki pulls back a touch, somehow still immaculate when Steve’s sure he’s probably a panting wreck personally, and his smile this time is warm and pleased and he says,

 

 

   “I thought you’d like that,” and Steve swallows and has no idea _what_ to say.

 

 

   Thankfully, he doesn’t need to find anything to say at all, because Loki resumes kissing him, only in a slightly different way, and if Steve knew anything about kissing he’d swear up and down this is the sort of kissing you do with people you intend to make love to, but of course that can’t be right.

 

 

   Ten minutes later when Loki slides down to kneel in front of him and opens Steve’s jeans, Steve still can’t decide whether he’s surprised, downright shocked, or just utterly scandalised. A part of him also hasn’t come to any conclusion regarding whether or not he’s just having a very vivid and protracted hallucinatory experience, so there’s that.

 

 

   Five minutes after that, it’s all he can do to gasp the odd life-giving breath here and there and hope he doesn’t die of asphyxiation before he can finish, although given Loki’s apparent penchant for teasing and control, it seems a dim sort of hope.

 

 

   Three minutes later and his entire body has short-circuited in one big unreserved **_‘yes’_** to everything that makes up the world.

 

 

   Roughly two minutes after that, the various shattered bits and pieces of his mind register things like the softness of Loki’s hair between his fingers and the genuine contentment in those very green eyes, and the fact that Steve’s now sprawled on the floor with Loki twined around him looking both smug and delighted.

 

 

   Steve’s completely beyond speech, but Loki doesn’t seem to be in need of it anyway, and while Steve tries to sort through the overwhelming sense of everything being so much better than it ever has been to get to the totally confusing but relevant-seeming question of _‘why’_ and _‘what even’_ which is so far in the minority in the face of how marvellously satisfied Steve’s whole body feels that it’s not even funny, Loki tidies them both up and picks them off the floor and cups Steve’s face in both hands and bestows several very gentle kisses on him that feel like a kind of gratitude wrapped in a reverent leave-taking, and Steve’s hands go to Loki’s elbows and pull him in and they just sort of stand there, connected but not.

 

 

   It’s as pleasant as it is completely outside Steve’s frame of reference for anything, ever. That’s probably why the first thing he does manage to say is,

 

 

   “The keys...” which he immediately regrets because how is that still relevant to life, and Loki’s smile is impish when he curves it around a darkly amused reply of,

 

 

   “They’re in my pocket.”

 

 

   Steve doesn’t really see how that makes sense, but after the turn his evening’s already taken he supposes he wouldn’t be too shocked if God himself came down from heaven to make a noise complaint at this point, and in any case Loki’s not laughing _at Steve_ but at something else entirely, and as long as that’s quite clear, Steve doesn’t really care for much else.

 

 

   “Good,” he says, and Loki looks just thrilled and kisses him again, and well, Steve can work with that.

 

 

   It’s when Loki sighs and pulls away that Steve remembers that the world probably hasn’t yet stopped turning and that life probably goes on and that he can’t really see a way for this not to somehow become very suddenly very awkward or for Loki to regain his sanity and start regretting everything that’s happened in the last half hour or so, but Loki just says,

 

 

   “Thank you,” and unlocks the door, and then, pausing slightly before he says it as though it almost slipped past his lips without his consent,

 

 

   “Honestly.”

 

 

   And then he’s gone and Steve has to take a few very steadying breaths. When he finally manages to walk into the hall, he’s forgotten all about why he’s here and has no idea what time it is or what his plans were for getting home. He just fishes out his jacket from the piles of others on top of it, and escapes into the cool night air.

 

 

   It’s easier to breathe, here, and the stars are very clear tonight, and his blood sings through him and reminds him all over again, and he can’t help thinking how surreal it feels, but at the same time how little he regrets it, if at all.

 

 

   He’s home and getting undressed in his own bathroom before he really feels the shift in him, and he ends up staring at himself in the mirror, shirtless and with the residual slight and uneven tan from a recent summer filled with long, too-hot days and not enough sunscreen making him rather less sickly-looking than usual in the light over the mirror, and he looks at the frankly disbelieving expression on his own face and then the puffy pinkness of his lips and the dazed, satisfaction-drugged cast of his eyes that prove it wrong and thinks, _well._

 

 

   _That escalated quickly._


	2. Purpose

 

 

 

   Steve doesn’t think about it at all the next day.

 

 

   Well, technically he doesn’t think about it – he’s not thinking about the act itself, about having gotten to third base with someone – he’s thinking about _Loki_. In fact, Steve is pretty sure he’d feel iffy about applying baseball metaphors to the event if it had been someone other than Loki, because for all Steve’s spoken maybe once, properly, to the guy, he’s nonetheless enchanted by him and Steve just knows Loki’s the kind of intelligent, intriguing human being you meet maybe twice in your life.

 

 

   This means that when Steve is suddenly treated to a flash of memory from the event, it’s not just about how great it felt to have Loki’s mouth on him, and how clever that mouth had been, but how teasingly quick the smiles it formed were and how it shaped the words that seemed to so aggravate Thor – however innocent they seemed to be.

 

 

   Steve spends all day thinking about Loki, who is all lines and paleness and elegant hands and sharply feeling eyes in Steve’s memory, and at length decides that this is not simply something he can brush off.

 

 

   Perhaps Steve is every bit as uptight and old-fashioned about these things as people like Stark says he is, but Steve can’t convince himself to downplay what happened as just a bit of fun between two consenting parties in a convenient situation. He can’t put it down to a bit of casual experimentation because it seemed quite clear that Loki was in complete control of what he was doing and Steve's not given to things like 'casual experimentation' in the first place, and there was no question of either of them being even slightly drunk, so he can’t even wave it away with a ‘ _things happen at parties like that_ ’.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t think it was _planned_ on Loki’s part, that he entered into the situation or even entered the house considering anything like what he and Steve ended up doing, mostly because however effortless and seamlessly not-awkward Loki made it appear, Steve remembers the way Loki looked at him, that sudden interest suffusing his gaze when he examined Steve before following him into the crowd.

 

 

   It may have been a split-second decision, but Loki must have based it on something, and Steve just can’t see Loki as one of those people who does things for no reason. Loki just doesn’t strike him as one of those ‘ _for the hell of it_ ’ people like Stark, or even a ‘ _let’s try it and see_ ’ type like that Clint guy Bucky knows who sometimes goes to those shindigs as well.

 

 

   Steve can’t shake the overpowering thought that there is so much more to Loki that Steve would be delighted to discover, that here is a complex, creative soul, much like Steve’s only less settled, and Steve kind of wants to let Loki know that if nothing else, what happened between them was not an empty matter of course to Steve – that it had more depth than that and that Steve appreciates having shared the experience with Loki.

 

 

   In the end, Steve reasons that a thank-you card is entirely non-clingy and appropriate, provided Steve keep the wording above-board – which shouldn’t be hard since writing profanity of any kind is still a major hurdle for Steve and makes him incredibly uncomfortable – and refrains from making any assumptions or implying anything about Loki’s potential reasons for acting as he did, even if Steve’s whole body seems to echo with the question _‘why me why me’_ and he’d really like an answer to it if only to _know_.

 

 

   Steve eats a sandwich around one at his mother’s prompting and flushes when she tells him how much better he looks and how tired he was yesterday before going out with Bucky and how she’d been worried it would make him worse and how glad she is that it seems to have had the opposite effect, and he manages to mumble something about how it was a good night and she seems satisfied enough with that, but a tiny part of him is screaming _‘she knows!’_ and the rest of him is divided between _‘of course she knows, she’s your mother, they always know’_ and _‘don’t be an idiot there’s no way she could possibly know’_.

 

 

   Either way, she says nothing more about it, and so he eats his sandwich and tidies up his plate, and then goes to his room and sits down at his desk and picks up a pen.

 

 

   Again, Steve is sure that if certain people – _Stark and the others_ – knew, they’d laugh themselves sick, but Steve can’t help wanting to communicate his thanks to Loki for something shared which has provided Steve with a life-changing experience he’d never thought he’d have, before, and the knowledge that doing this isn’t wrong and that it’s the right choice for _Steve_ to do this enables him to put pen to paper to sketch out a rough draft of what he wants to say.

 

 

   It’s while he’s letting himself relax into the familiarly comfortable feeling of his hands moving while the pen leaves shapes in its wake that he can consider Loki’s physicality again, how put-together he was, and how he is put together.

 

 

   Lines, Steve thinks. Lines and shadows. Like everyone else when you put their image to paper, but different somehow. Sharper. Softer. More _secret_. Steve doesn’t have the words for this sort of thing – he could draw what he thinks and means but he can’t spell it out in his own head. Still – he thinks, _flair, drama, ambiguity_ , and that works, after a fashion, comes close enough.

 

 

   It’s this that makes Steve think that Loki would be the kind of person who can appreciate a gesture like this as long as it is sincere and heartfelt, and, well, Steve tries not to do anything unless he sincerely believes it to be for the best, and none of his deeper instincts go against this course of action, so the words come to him, little by little, and when they look right on paper, he selects a different pen and a different sheet of another kind of paper and writes it more nicely, and then lets it dry and looks at it until he’s sure.

 

 

   He sort of wants to give in to the urge to let the words he can’t say or find as well as he wishes he could out through the medium of a different sort of lines on the paper, but he holds back, both because that isn’t what this is about, at least not right now – not _yet_ – and because somehow that feels private, almost invasive, both for Steve who’ll be doing it, and for Loki who’ll be receiving it, interpreting it, because Steve doesn’t doubt that he’ll be able to express it far better through art and he also has no doubt that Loki is more than capable of understanding it if Steve chooses to do so, and that’s a kind of intimacy, a kind of disclosure that Steve’s not quite sure he’s ready for.

 

 

   When Steve isn’t sure something’s the right thing to do, for himself or others, he tends not to pursue it until it becomes right or a better way presents itself.

 

 

   In the end, he seals the card in an envelope, looks up Thor’s address – Loki’s isn’t listed anywhere that Steve can find, and that’s not as surprising as he probably would have thought it had Loki been anyone else at all – because Thor is listed as living at home with his family still, and Steve reasons that Loki is either in residence at that address as well, at least part-time, or that any mail addressed to him which is sent there will be forwarded.

 

 

   He doesn’t add anything more to the card than the words, and nothing to the envelope but the address he means it to end up at, and his own on the back just in case something goes wrong and the post needs to return it. If that happens, he’ll find another way to make it work, but until then Steve’s quite happy with the way he’s chosen to proceed.

 

 

   At dinner, his mother comments again on how well-rested he looks and asks his opinion on whether the new medication he’s just started on is perhaps the cause of this sudden appearance of good health, and Steve smiles and shrugs and agrees that it could be a contributing factor, and tells her nothing about how he posted something earlier in the day when she sent him out to pick up milk or that he’s spent the last few hours since he got back sitting in his room drawing something he can’t express in words and isn’t sure he wants to reveal even to himself yet.

 

 

   He doesn’t really expect a reply, so he’s a little more than surprised when he receives a letter three days later so crisply presented that Steve can’t really believe it came through the mail at all – although the stamp tells no lies on that count – containing a response as polite as the original missive laid out in handwriting that thrills Steve’s artistic side and written in such a way as to reassure Steve that Loki has absolutely no regrets and that he finds it perfectly fitting and pleasing to receive a proper, formal acknowledgment of his considerably enjoyable company.

 

 

   He also very kindly informs Steve that he is no longer residing at the address to which Steve’s card was originally posted.

 

 

   He does not provide an updated address. There also is no return address anywhere to be found either on the letter itself or the envelope it was sent in.

 

 

   Steve examines it thoroughly, just in case, and when he is sure, he laughs.

 

 

 


	3. Equilibrium

 

 

 

   “You seem a lot happier today,” Dr. Erskine remarks as he makes a note on Steve’s chart, and Steve flushes.

 

 

   “It’s been a good week,” he mumbles, and Erskine shoots him a look and one of those knowing smiles that Steve never quite knows how to take.

 

 

   “Well whatever’s happened is clearly doing you some good, you look much healthier already. Have you been eating?” the doctor asks, and Steve nods.

 

 

   “Mom’s been following that plan you sent me home with, she keeps reminding me to eat,” he replies, and Dr. Erskine makes another note on the chart.

 

 

   “Glad to hear it. And you’ve been exercising like I told you?” he inquires, and Steve fidgets slightly.

 

 

   “Yeah...” he draws out, and Erskine sighs and puts down his pen.

 

 

   “Steve, we’ve talked about this. I told you when I got you into the clinical trial that for this to have the best effects possible, you need to have some patience and work with me. Changes like the ones we’re trying to make happen don’t come about overnight, they take time, and they’ll take even longer if you overdo it. I understand how frustrating that is, but I want you to get better just as much as you do and I can’t do that if you don’t listen to me,” he explains, calm and sympathetic and almost unfairly sensible, and Steve feels like shouting because however much he likes the good doctor and however much he knows that what Erskine’s saying makes sense, he _doesn’t_ understand what Steve’s going through and he never can.

 

 

   “I’m sorry, I’m trying, I just... I’m tired of _waiting_. I’m sick of always feeling sick and of looking like _this_ and...” Steve can’t continue, mostly because Dr. Erskine’s not here to listen to him whining but also just a little because Steve doesn’t actually _want_ to explain how much it hurts some days to wake up and realise he’s still trapped in a body that feels totally wrong and useless to him. Steve doesn’t want to talk about it because if he does he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to carry on pretending that it doesn’t bother him all that much.

 

 

   Steve’s also pretty sure that he doesn’t really need to say anything too concrete on the subject off his own bat because Dr. Erskine’s looking at him very solemnly and _that_ look means Steve’s going to _have_ to talk about it.

 

 

   “Steve, one of the reasons I got you into this trial was the fact that for many years now, you’ve been suffering unnecessarily from a condition that hasn’t been managed properly. Now, that isn’t anyone’s fault, medicine makes huge strides every day in treatment plans and even sometimes cures for all sorts of ailments, and the way you were being treated previously was perfectly logical in terms of what was widely known and accepted medically about cases like yours before the research that we have now was ready to be applied to patients. What that means, however, is that you haven’t been given the best chance at the kind of health and quality of life you should have had, but now we know more, and we can work together to help give you that.”

 

 

   Steve nods but doesn’t look up, and Dr. Erskine continues.

 

 

   “I know this has been bothering you for years, and you have every right to be impatient now that we’ve got a new plan of action and we’re looking at some actual results in the near future. I also know that when you first came to me and I suggested you see someone while you were on this trial to help talk through some of the issues you’ve been having, you said that wasn’t necessary, but I think that maybe at this stage, we should have another look at whether or not that needs to happen.”

 

 

   Dr Erskine slides what looks like a business card out of the open file lying on his desk, and pushes it across the table towards Steve.

 

 

   “That’s the number for a therapist I refer many of my patients to. I understand perfectly if you don’t want to make a decision about this right now, or if you want to talk this over with your mother first, but I highly recommend you get in touch with him and consider making an appointment.”

 

 

   Steve picks up the business card and just holds it, letting the edges sink into his fingertips a little while he keeps staring at the file on Erskine’s desk.

 

 

   “You’re a fine young man, Steve, and I promise we are going to help you make the progress we both want to see happen here, but you need to believe me when I say this takes the time it takes, and you can’t overdo it. It won’t make the changes happen any faster, and you might even set yourself back. This all depends on you following our plans to the letter and helping us to help you. I know you appreciate that.”

 

 

   Steve does understand, and he wants to tell Dr. Erskine that, promise that he’ll remember and try harder not to overdo things, but he makes the mistake of looking down at the business card in his hands and before he can even read the name of the therapist he catches sight of his own knobbly wrists and blurts out,

 

 

   “I know, but it doesn’t make me hate myself any less.”

 

 

   He regrets it immediately, because the look that crosses Dr. Erskine’s face is far too close to tired pity for Steve’s liking, and it makes him angry on top of everything else.

 

 

   “When you came in today you looked a lot happier than I’ve seen you in a very long time. What triggered that?” Erskine asks, and Steve shrugs uncomfortably.

 

 

   “I don’t really – it’s been a good week,” he repeats, and when Erskine doesn’t reply, Steve looks away out of the window and mumbles,

 

 

   “I kind of... Maybe... I sort of met... someone...”

 

 

   “I see. And I take it that meeting this person went well,” Dr. Erskine prompts, and Steve feels himself flush and flatly refuses to meet the doctor’s gaze.

 

 

   “It went okay,” he allows. He's not sure the word ' _amazing_ ' is useful in this context. He's definitely certain that no form of the phrase ' _life-changing_ ' is going to be helpful either. At best it leads to awkward questioning, at worst it makes him look pretty pathetic. That really isn't what he's going for. Ever.

 

 

   _Even if it is true._

 

 

   “Well that’s a positive thing to focus on,” Erskine says encouragingly,

 

 

   “Are you going to be seeing this person again?”

 

 

   Steve thinks of the letter he has hidden at home where no one but Steve is likely to ever see it, thinks of how it makes him smile and the way he imagines those elegant hands must have looked crafting it. He thinks about how the lack of any kind of contact information provided in return seemed like kind of a private joke at the time but now Steve’s not so _sure_ anymore, and he shakes his head.

 

 

   “I don’t think so,” he says, trying to inject a little practicality into it, but he fancies it comes out slightly dejected instead.

 

 

   “Well that’s alright, it’s the experiences that count. You can build on little moments like that, little things that make you feel happy, even if they’re not repeated or continued, they still count. You can’t let yourself fixate on how certain things aren’t the way you want them to be right now or how things aren’t happening as fast as you’d like them to. You have to let yourself focus on the good things that do happen. It’s important to let yourself do that, otherwise all the work we’re doing here isn’t ever going to be enough to make you feel at peace in and with yourself,” Dr. Erskine tells him, and Steve nods.

 

 

   “Right now I can tell you that everything looks stable and I just want you to keep doing what you’ve been doing so far, but _don’t_ exhaust yourself. It’s not healthy and it won’t help in the long run. Now, I’m going to need you to come back in two weeks. You can call and make an appointment like you did last time when you know which day you’re available. In the meantime, I strongly advise you give that therapist a call.”

 

 

   Dr. Erskine rises, and Steve follows his example, turning to the door. He hesitates when he feels Erskine’s hand on his shoulder.

 

 

   “Take care, Steve,” Erskine says, and Steve turns around and smiles brightly, reaching out his own hand to shake.

 

 

   “Will do, sir,” he promises, but once he’s shaken the doctor’s hand and left the office, he lets the smile slip and doesn’t paste it back on until he’s outside again and Bucky can see him.

 

 

   “How was it?”

 

 

   Steve shrugs, this one a little more nonchalant, precisely as it should be because this is something he’s done a hundred times and a question he’s fielded at least as many, so it’s easy to just say,

 

 

   “Fine. Everything looks great,” and then to listen with half an ear while Bucky tells him how great that is and how Steve has to come with him to the library because apparently one of the part-time workers there is very attractive – or words to a similar effect – and while they walk and Steve takes care to nod at all the right moments so Bucky will keep talking and Steve won’t have to, Steve lets his mind wander and thinks about what Erskine told him.

 

 

   If he’s completely honest, it just sounds like one of those things you tell people who aren’t having a great time of it, the usual _‘keep your chin up, it’ll get better’_ stuff, and that got old a while back, so Steve doesn’t have a lot of faith in how helpful that attitude has the potential to be because honestly, he’s been smiling through life in the hopes that it’d start looking up for a long time now and so far, no dice.

 

 

   Really, Steve doesn’t see what’s so wrong about wanting things to pick up _now_. Even if he is old enough to know that the universe doesn’t function by those principles, he can’t help but feel like he’s earned it.

 

 

   “ – Thor’s brother, you remember him, anyway – ”

 

 

   Steve almost walks into a lamppost.

 

 

   “ _What?_ ” he demands, and Bucky stops talking, frowns, and slows down, eyes inquiring things of Steve that Steve doesn’t really think are anyone’s business but Steve’s own, thanks a bundle.

 

 

   “I was just saying, he’s on some of the same shifts she is. Looks like they’re friends. Hey, you remember Thor’s brother, right? He was at that party – kind of tall, doesn’t look anything like Thor? You talked,” Bucky reminds him, and Steve nods automatically, still going over everything Bucky’s been saying in the past five minutes that Steve hasn’t really been listening to, and the mechanical nod combined with the shocked look on his face is apparently enough to make Bucky suspicious, because he stops walking and says,

 

 

   “You know, you left right after you spoke to the guy. You didn’t even tell me you were going home,” and Steve hears the accusations – _you made me worry about you_ – and the here-and-now concern – _did something happen?_ – and forces an apologetic smile.

 

 

   “I know, I’m sorry. I just kind of realised how tired I was and figured I’d head home. You were talking to the others so I didn’t think to come tell you I was leaving. I got home fine,” he assures Bucky, and prays to God there will be no further mention of it.

 

 

   “Why’d you get all weird just now?” Bucky wants to know, and privately _Steve_ would like to know why the heck every damn time he asks God for something the Good Lord seems to have other things to do than be in Steve’s corner for a change.

 

 

   “Just surprised. I’d never even heard of him before the party,” Steve says casually, and Bucky hums in agreement of the unspoken oddness of that fact and the related oddness of how Thor’s brother has been seen more than once and this time in the cold light of day, and starts walking again. Steve tries not to count out how every one of his steps is like two of Steve’s own, but old habits die hard and it’s been a rough morning.

 

 

   “Yeah, I don’t think Thor talks about him a whole lot. I get the feeling they’re not exactly close,” Bucky comments, and Steve thinks of an address he doesn’t have as opposed to the one he does and considers how much sense it makes.

 

 

   “Anyway, like I said, I’ve seen him working some of the same shifts as this girl and it sure looks like _they’re_ pretty close,” Bucky continues, and Steve puts his hands in his pockets and focuses on just keeping up.

 

 

   Just because people seem to get on well doesn’t mean there’s anything more to it than that. Hell, just look at Steve and Bucky. Steve’s not upset that Loki‘s friends with someone he works with. In fact, he’s glad to hear Loki has friends at all, since all evidence points to his being somewhat estranged from his brother, at least, if not the rest of his family.

 

 

   As talk returns to the girl Bucky’s taking Steve to see – Steve’s not really sure he’s comfortable with the idea since it feels ever so slightly like going to the zoo to look at interesting animals, but then again he’s not sure that’s the right comparison to be making – Steve allows himself to tune out a little again, this time because now the potential for the morning to get a lot rougher is absolutely present and correct.

 

 

   What if Loki’s _there?_

 

 

   What if he thinks Steve’s there to look at _him_ , when in fact Steve’s going because Bucky wants to show Steve someone who apparently works with Loki and is on relatively good terms with him?

 

 

   What if that’s not okay?

 

 

   What if Loki’s _not_ there, but this girl happens to notice Steve – this one’s a little far fetched since obviously Bucky’s going to be there and the chances of attention falling on Steve at all under those circumstances are proven to be very small indeed – and relates this to Loki at some later stage, who, being clever, will then work it out and draw conclusions from it?

 

 

   What if Loki’s there _and actually **speaks** to Steve?_

 

 

   Steve has to take a deep breath at the idea of that last one, and then remind himself again that he’ll have Bucky there to hide behind – and then he realises.

 

 

   Loki’s only ever actually _seen_ Steve in the company of Bucky and other people who are all far more obvious candidates for attention than Steve is himself, and yet Steve’s pretty sure _he’s_ the only one Loki’s taken to third base – and/or Heaven, whatever works – and Steve manages to be shocked all over again before the fear that’s been building for the past few days grips him anew.

 

 

   What if, in fact, _really_ , Loki picked Steve because he _could_ , because to those with an eye for these things Steve probably reeks more of quiet, resigned desperation than anyone else in the history of the universe, and Loki has points to score against his brother and everyone Thor knows and surrounds himself with?

 

 

   What if Steve’s actually _exactly_ as much of a huge joke as he’s always secretly thought he must be, and Loki chose him for that exact reason?

 

 

   What if everyone’s known this whole time and that’s the punch line?

 

 

   Before Steve’s properly done worrying about all these horrible possibilities, they’re actually crossing the library threshold and Bucky’s casually dragging Steve behind some convenient shelving to point to a young woman standing at the information and check-out desk who is indeed stunning, and informing Steve that,

 

 

   “She’s the one.”

 

 

   Steve figures an absent nod is enough to communicate that he’s seen her and understood that she’s as attractive as Bucky’s been claiming, but he’s actually busily scanning the surrounding area for anything at all hinting at being Loki-shaped.

 

 

   Steve just about manages to tamp down the panic attack brewing in his chest when he can’t see anything matching the description he’s been carrying in his head and sketchbooks since he met Loki, and offers up a basic sort of thanks to Jesus when Bucky seems to consider that Steve’s seen enough of this pretty girl and pulls him out of the building.

 

 

   It’s best to cover all the bases, just in case.

 

 

   “So?” Bucky prompts, and Steve smiles nervously, wishing he were a little further away from potential disaster.

 

 

   “She’s a looker, just like you said,” he agrees, and Bucky looks almost smug.

 

 

   “I know. What do you think my chances are?”

 

 

   Steve pretends to consider it, but ultimately falls back on the same thing he’s been telling Bucky since they were old enough to care about these things:

 

 

   “You should go for it.” Really, that’s all Bucky wants to hear, and Steve’s seen enough of these situations to know that nine times out of ten Bucky going for it pays off, so it’s a safe enough piece of advice to give.

 

 

   It satisfies Bucky just as well as it usually does, and the decision is made to drop Steve off at home because he ‘has things to do’.

 

 

   It’s not like Bucky needs to know that ‘things’ in this case means ‘handling an imminent nervous breakdown’.

 

 

   Steve loses himself in talk of baseball – always a soothing topic – until he’s safely in his own front yard and actually manages to stave off the internal crisis until he’s waved Bucky off and is upstairs in his room with the door shut, at which point he hyperventilates for about three solid minutes and then has to drink a glass of water and lie in the foetal position on his bed clutching a pillow until he can think clearly again and his lungs stop hurting.

 

 

   He breathes deeply a few times just because he can and it’s good, and his heart calms down as _home_ and _safe_ seep into him along with the comforting scent of the pie his mother baked earlier which is still lingering around the house where he least expects it.

 

 

   Loki didn’t choose Steve to be cruel. Steve just can’t believe that.

 

 

   It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to know the real reason, but right now it’s _enough_. Right now, it’s okay.

 

 

   _Now_ , Steve thinks to himself, pressing his cheek to the pillow and hiding his smile, he knows where to _find_ Loki.

 

 

   Steve’s always loved libraries.

 

 

 


	4. Concession

 

 

   It takes three trips before Steve manages to pick a day where Loki’s working, and although Steve’s ‘usual’ table is close enough to the main desk that he can easily see and be seen – but not so close that his sitting there could be awkward or intrusive – Loki doesn’t actually notice him until about an hour in. Or at least, he doesn’t notice Steve in any obvious way that Steve can immediately recognise as Loki registering his presence. For all Steve knows Loki could have been fully aware that he was there the whole time. That’s definitely what he’s telling himself as he flushes and smiles and keeps his eyes firmly on his homework.

 

 

   He stays for another hour, mostly because he’s getting tired and he needs to get back so his mother won’t worry, but also a little because he doesn’t want Loki to think Steve’s waiting around for Loki to come and talk to him or something. That really isn’t what this is about, at least not right now.

 

 

   Steve’s just happy to see that he’s been getting the length of Loki’s eyelashes right in his drawings. He clearly needs to work on the slant of his mouth, though.

 

 

   After that it take another two tries before he hits on a Loki-day again, and Steve makes a note of it beside the note he made of the last one. He’s sort of trying to establish whether there’s a pattern to the shifts Loki takes and whether maybe he’ll be able to predict which days are Loki-days.

 

 

   Steve loves libraries, and he likes this one, too, but he’s not going to pretend to himself that he drags all his stuff here just for the ambiance. He’s willing to be honest on that point. He comes because he wants to see Loki, because Loki holds a fascination for Steve that he just can’t seem to pinpoint, and he still doesn’t quite have the hang of how sharp Loki’s cheekbones are.

 

 

   The girl Bucky originally brought Steve to the library to see is there almost every time Steve comes, and Steve does a few sketches of her as well, both because she really is stunning, but also because she has an extremely expressive face. She is there on both the Loki-days, and it’s clear that she cares for him – it’s in the softening of her eyes and the way her smile seems less guarded, and Steve gets the impression she feels the same affection for Loki that Steve feels for Bucky. It’s the warmth of feeling that accumulates with old friends, friends you’ve been through a lot with.

 

 

   However, Steve revises his original opinion that Bucky has a shot with her. Even someone who doesn’t people-watch as much as Steve does would have to admit that it’s very clear how completely not interested she is in any kind of advances made towards her. Her demeanour around the people who approach her is all business, even though she is polite and does smile, and the second it becomes obvious that she’s been approached for non-library related things, all shields are up.

 

 

   On Steve’s sixth visit Loki’s not there, but the pretty girl he’s friends with makes a young man wearing a fedora and sporting a patchy beard leave sniffling after he hits on her. Steve tries to keep his laughter discreet and silent.

 

 

   After a while, a pattern does emerge, and Steve works out that Loki tends to have three shifts a week, and that only the Saturday shift appears to be flexible. It’s easy enough to just make sure he has things to do that could be done from the library on the days in question, and Steve finds that he gets a lot more reading and work done than he did before in general.

 

 

   He does have rules for this arrangement, though.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t stay until the end of Loki’s shifts, so he doesn’t know when Loki finishes. He also isn’t entirely sure when Loki usually starts since most days Loki seems to spend the first long stretch of his time in the library downstairs in the archives or shelving and re-shelving things. Steve has no desire to know either of these details because if he did know he’d be tempted to just arrive at around the same time as Loki and maybe catch him outside when he’s going home at some point and that feels too invasive to Steve.

 

 

   Steve also doesn’t approach Loki to speak to him, and he doesn’t sit around staring at him all the time either. It wouldn’t be right to basically harass Loki while he’s working, and even though Loki is incredibly appealing to Steve from an aesthetic point of view, Steve feels like just gawking at him would be rude and awkward.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t draw Loki when he’s in the library. He doesn’t bring sketchbooks with drawings of Loki in them with him to the library. He completely refrains from drawing anything remotely Loki-like while in the library, however tempting it is sometimes when the light hits Loki just right or his lips quirk while he’s speaking to his friend. Steve knows his own luck and is positive that the minute he breaks the art-related-to-Loki rule, God will see fit to somehow engineer it so that someone – probably Loki himself – sees it and calls Steve on it to great embarrassment and weirdness for everyone involved, and Steve’s not about to let that happen.

 

 

   Steve does do a few sketches of Loki’s friend on occasion, though, but nothing too detailed or specific. While he can certainly understand Bucky’s – and plenty of other peoples’ interest – she doesn’t cast the same spell over Steve that Loki does.

 

 

   After about a month, Steve’s starting to wonder whether anyone else ever will.

 

 

   He also can’t help wondering whether what he’s doing here is right at all, especially since even he doesn’t really know what it is he wants to achieve with it – if anything – and he can’t help thinking that maybe there’s such a thing as wishing too much and being too naively sure that the universe has to eventually give something back for all the good effort he’s put into life over the years.

 

 

   He wonders if it really _is_ too much to hope, deep down, for just a shred of recognition or a hint that he’s remembered beyond maybe a crumpled envelope that might still be in the very bottom of a bin somewhere, and on this Loki-day Steve finds himself a little less sure about everything and a little more in search of a reason for his own actions.

 

 

   It’s almost three and Steve puts his things in his bag slowly, still thinking, suddenly tired of everything in his own head, and he lets himself look up and over at Loki briefly when he rises to sling his bag over his arm and head for the exit.

 

 

   Loki’s wearing a green t-shirt today. There’s a black leather jacket draped over the back of his chair. His hair’s not as pulled-back as it is on two days out of three. He’s beautiful and Steve can’t bear the way the light plays over the bridge of his nose. Steve has a drawing at home that precisely depicts just such a scene.

 

 

   He doesn’t rush to the doors because he doesn’t have to and he doesn’t want to, and he can’t help but stop just before the ‘welcome’ mat, adjusting his bag and looking back at Loki properly this time.

 

 

   It’s more than a little surprising that this shift in habit finds Loki staring directly at Steve, eyes big and so piercing that Steve feels as if Loki’s hollowing him out like a pumpkin and storing away the goopy contents for later use.

 

 

   It’s as unnerving and emotionally harrowing as it is glorious, and Steve only feels raw and laid bare for a moment before a velvety warmth spreads inside him as if a lit candle’s been placed in the newly-made space, and Steve’s smile is a helpless though hesitant reaction to that sensation.

 

 

   He doesn’t quite manage to stop himself before he’s lifted his hand in a quick wave of greeting and acknowledgment, and while he’s cursing himself for what has to be one of his less suave habits, Steve observes the curious sight of Loki raising his own hand as though unaware he’s doing so, and sort of bringing it up to around the height a returned wave would require, only to stop and push back his hair with a graceful flick of his wrist, breaking their eye-contact for a second.

 

 

   It takes Steve a moment to process and then he gets it. Steve’s not the only one who can be awkward. Loki’s not giving Steve anything more than he’s comfortable with, and Steve’s seen how closed-off he is even with his friend despite the clear underlying affection between them. For Loki to even try to return a gesture as obvious as Steve’s must have cost him something, and the absurdly happy smile that infects Steve’s entire face is testament to how much that means to Steve. Of course, it’s accompanied by a ferocious blush that forces him to look away and leave the building to try and get it under control, but the stupid smile doesn’t fade until he gets home and has to moderate it slightly to avoid his mother’s questioning.

 

 

   The happiness he feels doesn’t fade.

 

 

 


	5. Recovery

 

 

 

  It’s just Steve’s luck that the minute things start looking up, Bucky decides Steve’s been working too hard and drags him along to have ‘a few drinks with the guys’, the venue being Stark’s vast and impressively kitted-out garage so they can listen to Stark go on and on about all the mechanical things he’s been tinkering with lately to improve them, and Thor can weigh in because apparently he is not only able to easily bench a car engine but he’s also interested in their inner workings.

 

 

   On this particular afternoon, however, it would seem that Stark is more interested in asking,

 

 

   “So what’s up with your brother?” of Thor, who looks incredibly pained to have anyone remember that he even _has_ a brother.

 

 

   “Why do you ask?” Thor replies in a rather pitiful attempt at nonchalance while Steve tries to feign disinterest. Stark shrugs with rather more genuine nonchalance and simply says,

 

 

   “He’s hot,” to which Steve privately agrees, but the statement seems to make Thor even less willing to discuss the matter and he mutters,

 

 

   “He’s just Loki,” as if being Loki is sort of like being a different species or coming from another planet – foreign, uncomfortably real, but not worth further study except perhaps by experts and only then in some specially-designated laboratory far away from ordinary humans.

 

 

   Steve almost opens his mouth to tell Thor off, to tell him how amazing Loki is, how fascinating, but he doesn’t because he’s terrified that all he’ll be able to offer as proof is Loki’s confirmed hotness and apparent casual habit of going to house parties under mundane pretexts and then taking naïve practical strangers into bathrooms to ruin them for other people.

 

 

   Steve’s not sure how to explain any of that with words in a way that makes sense and wouldn’t potentially be pretty offensive to Loki’s brother, so he keeps quiet in case the words end up coming to him of their own accord.

 

 

   Meanwhile, Stark’s musing on whether Loki might be available and Thor looks about ready to die of shame at the prospect.

 

 

   “ – might help to know what he’s into,” Stark concludes, and Thor’s shoulders hunch defensively.

 

 

   _Pathetic dorks with complexes is one option_ , Steve thinks, but Thor mumbles,

 

 

   “I don’t know. He doesn’t talk to me,” and Stark sighs dramatically.

 

 

   “Shame. I bet even Whole Milk over here wouldn’t say no to a piece of that, am I right?”

 

 

   Steve dodges both the elbow Stark tries to wedge between his ribs and most of the crude and overly-familiar sentiment, and flushes.

 

 

   Not from embarrassment but because he can’t possibly comment when he knows from experience that he wouldn’t – _couldn’t_ – say no to Loki and that God help him should he ever be blessed with a second chance he wouldn’t say no to that either.

 

 

   In fact, he’s more than willing to turn the tables if only to breathe Loki in properly, feel those long pale fingers in his hair and taste him when he reaches that state of blind weightless bliss he put Steve in.

 

 

   But Steve doesn’t say anything, just ducks his head and moves off to the side while Bucky instructs Stark to lay the hell off him already, and tries not to fixate on how Loki’s mouth felt on Steve’s own, or how his body was hard and pliant in turn against him, or the way he smiled after he’d brought Steve’s world crashing down around his ears and what he looked like slung across Steve’s chest as if he was as comfortable there as he might be in his own bed.

 

 

   Steve wonders whether that’s talent born of practice, a façade to prevent the situation from growing awkward, or a measure of how little a threat Steve appears to be in the grand scheme of things, that Loki should feel or give the impression of feeling so at ease with him.

 

 

   He banishes the idea from his mind quickly, mostly because it hurts to consider any of those possibilities, and instead wonders whether Loki really did pick him because he wanted Steve or whether Loki had other motives.

 

 

   Steve rather thinks Loki’s the sort of person to always have the least obvious reasoning for everything he does, or at least the most unexpected. It’s just unfortunate that Steve can’t work out what that would be in this case.

 

 

   Steve finally manages to escape by reminding Bucky that he has an early-morning appointment and needs to get home, but when he does get home after his mother’s watched him force down what’s actually a really great dinner but about half a helping more than he really has room for, all he does is lie in bed and stare at the ceiling trying not to think.

 

 

   That’s probably part of the reason why when he wakes up at seven the next day, his head is killing him and it feels like an elephant’s sitting on his chest.

 

 

   He about manages to get dressed – although a sudden lack of coordination means he has a few bruises by the end of it – and makes his way carefully down the stairs, but there’s no fooling his mother and she has the thermometer in hand so quickly he wonders if she pulled it out of hammerspace.

 

 

   Of course he’s got some flu variation or other so his appointment with Erskine ends up being mainly about that, and he’s so tired from the short trip to the doctor’s office and of the same old _'fluids, rest, painkillers, watch the temperature'_ speech he's been hearing since he was old enough to understand what the doctors were saying that when he gets home he sleeps the rest of the morning away, but when he wakes up again at two he’s feeling a little better and his mother approves him going to the library as long as he promises to be back home no later than four.

 

 

   Four’s fine. Steve really just wants to see Loki after everything yesterday put in his head, just to get a feel for what he’s thinking now.

 

 

   When he gets there, however, he feels just as bad as he did before the nap, and he seriously considers just going home again when a glass of water miraculously appears on the table in front of him and he looks up to see Loki’s friend smiling down at him kindly. 

 

 

   “I thought you could use this,” she says softly, and Steve smiles back, a little confused. Does he really look that awful?

 

 

   If he looks as awful as he feels, then he can absolutely understand why she’s doing this.

 

 

   “Thank you,” he tells her, and she smiles more brightly.

 

 

   “I’m Sigyn, I know we haven’t met before but I’ve noticed you in here a lot,” she informs him, and he nods, a little wary.

 

 

   “I’m Steve,” he replies, and she looks rather as though she already knew that.

 

 

   Steve’s not sure if that’s more or less scary than the idea that she might have been keeping track of his visits and relaying the information to Loki.

 

 

   “You shouldn’t have come today if you don’t feel well,” she says, and he flushes, mumbling,

 

 

   “I had something to do.”

 

 

   The look she gives him tells Steve everything he needs to know about how much of the situation she grasps and that really is just as scary as he’s been imagining it to be.

 

 

   “I know,” she says simply,

 

 

   “But taking care of yourself is more important. Promise me that you will.”

 

 

   Steve is perfectly aware that she’s trying to tell him something but either he’s not getting it or he’s not open to her meaning, and she doesn’t seem to want to elaborate so instead he just says,

 

 

   “I’ll try. Thanks for the water,” and she smiles and leaves.

 

 

   She doesn’t once touch him and at no point was her tone or manner the slightest bit condescending. Steve sees why Loki seems to like her.

 

 

   He steals a quick look at Loki to see whether he’s been watching Steve’s exchange with Sigyn, but the two of them are speaking together and Sigyn’s smile has faded into something like exasperated concern, so Steve looks away and picks up the glass, drinking half the water in one go.

 

 

   He’s not exactly sure what she meant, but he’s glad he’s had a chance to speak to her and he’s glad to know Loki has her on his side.

 

 

   When he’s finished the water, he puts his stuff back in his bag and stands, turning with the glass in hand to go and give it back to her, but she smiles and gestures for him to leave it, and he does.

 

 

   He almost forgets to actually _leave_ , though, because Loki’s looking right at him again and this time his eyes are glowing and Steve’s almost positive there's a tiny smile in them somewhere, although by the time he gets home and has his temperature taken again it has spiked significantly, so he can’t be sure he really saw that or whether it was just delirium and wishful thinking.

 

 

   Still, when his mother orders him back to bed he goes gladly, and this time he falls asleep easily, his head full of clouds.  

 

 

 


	6. Ricochet

 

 

 

  Steve takes about a week to recover properly, and when he does he finds he’s actually a little behind on homework so he has a perfectly legitimate excuse to go to the library. Of course, he postpones the trip until that Thursday because he knows Loki will be there, and just seeing him puts an extra spring in his step.

 

 

   He refuses to consider how sad that probably is and sits down to work. He’s been there about half an hour when someone lays a hand on his shoulder and says,

 

 

   “Steve? Wow, great to see you!” and he looks up to see Bruce Banner grinning down at him.

 

 

   “Bruce! I had no idea you were back! How’ve you been?” he exclaims, rising to greet him properly, and Bruce shrugs shyly and mumbles,

 

 

   “Oh, you know, pretty good...”

 

 

   “That’s really great,” Steve tells him, and he absolutely means it. He and Bruce are paediatric ward buddies from way back – that’s a strong bond. Even if he hasn’t seen the guy in close to a year because he moved away with his mother, Steve’s still glad to see he looks so good.

 

 

   “So what’s new?” he asks, and Bruce flushes but his smile gets even wider.

 

 

   “I met someone. That’s why we’re here. I want to introduce her to my grandparents so we came up for a long weekend,” he explains, and Steve feels a sharp pang of emotion that he doesn’t care to identify and claps Bruce on the shoulder.

 

 

   “I’m happy for you, man,” he says sincerely, and Bruce’s eyes crinkle at the edges.

 

 

   “Thanks. I’m actually really glad to see you here, I was going to call and ask if you wanted to come out for coffee with us while we’re here, you know, meet her properly. I know it’s been a long time, but – ”

 

 

   “Sure. Absolutely. No problem. Did you bring her?” Steve cuts across firmly but kindly, because he remembers just how shaky Bruce’s self-esteem and confidence used to be and however it may slightly annoy Steve that everyone else in his life is apparently completely capable of having normal relationships, Bruce doesn’t need to know that and Steve is more than happy to meet anyone who can put that kind of effusive smile on Bruce’s face.

 

 

   “Yeah, she’s in the physics section – that’s how we met, we’re taking the same course. We’re just here to take back some books for my Grandma and because Mom wants some time alone with her. Thought we’d take a tour round town,” Bruce says, and Steve nods, still smiling.

 

 

   “Hey, do you have time right now? We could go to that little place with the blue chairs, if they’re still open,” Bruce suggests, and Steve glances over at the main desk where Loki is paying attention to something on the table in front of him. Sigyn on the other hand is looking at Steve and Bruce, and Steve makes a decision.

 

 

   “I’m free. Let me just pack up here and we can go.”

 

 

   “I’ll go get Betty,” Bruce agrees, giving Steve a one-armed hug before striding off in search of his girlfriend, and Steve lets his face fall into neutrality once again, gathering up his things and shoving them in his bag. He meets up with Bruce in front of the doors and suffers that little hitch of feeling again when he sees Bruce holding the hand of the very pretty girl he’s standing with.

 

 

   “Betty, this is Steve, Steve I’d like you to meet Betty,” Bruce says happily, and Steve shakes Betty’s hand politely.

 

 

   “Pleased to meet you,” he tells her, and she smiles sweetly.

 

 

   “Nice to finally meet you, too, Bruce has told me so much about you. Tell me, is the bedpan story really true?” she asks, and Steve has to laugh.

 

 

   “Afraid so. But we were only six, so don’t judge him for it.”

 

 

   The way she looks at Bruce is enough to make Steve like her.

 

 

   “Oh, I won’t. I think it’s cute what the two of you used to get up to. You must have been so adorable!” Betty chuckles, and Bruce blushes fiercely.

 

 

   “It really means a lot to me that Bruce is okay with me meeting his old friends,” she continues more soberly,

 

 

   “When we first met he was so shy he could hardly look at me – now we’re holding hands in public and he’s introducing me to his family! I can’t wait to get to know you better.”

 

 

   “Betty...” Bruce whines, clearly deeply embarrassed, but Steve can hear the adoration in his voice and he’s looking at the girl as if she invented all things good in the world, and clearly she isn’t taking his suddenly re-onset shyness seriously either.

 

 

   “I’m glad Bruce has made new friends,” Steve says honestly,

 

 

   “And I’m sure we’re gonna get along great.”

 

 

   “I know we will,” Betty says, and Steve sees the glance she exchanges with Bruce, all the warmth and fascination and contentment, and the tight sensation of the emotion he’s been pushing down blooms hot and hideous inside him and he finds himself saying,

 

 

   “You know what, I just have to go and ask someone a quick question then I’ll be right back. Two minutes, okay?” and his feet are carrying him away from the happy couple and he doesn’t even know where he’s going until he realises _he’s following Loki_ , who has left his post at the desk and is on his way to some distant corner shelves for some reason.

 

 

   Steve gets all the way there and hovers just behind Loki for a second before managing,

 

 

   “Excuse me,” in a far less manly tone than he thinks he was originally going for, and Loki turns with the book he seems to have been moving in hand and almost whacks Steve around the head with it.

 

 

   Loki’s face freezes and he snatches his arm away, and then his eyes cloud with some extreme of emotion Steve doesn’t recognise and it compels Steve to blurt out,

 

 

   “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to – ” but before he’s finished speaking Loki rallies and cuts him off.

 

 

   “It’s alright,” he says, and Steve can hardly believe how unaffected he sounds when two seconds ago he looked ready to bolt or batter Steve to death with what looks like a book about the theatre, but Steve swallows his confusion and manfully lays out why he snuck up on Loki to begin with. Or at least, he tries to.

 

 

   He gets about as far as,

 

 

   “I just – ” before he hears Bruce call him from where he and Betty are waiting by the door, and that’s apparently more than enough to shatter his resolve because all words but,

 

 

   “I’m sorry,” escape his command, and after that quiet, pained utterance he turns tail and flees back to Bruce who looks a tad bemused.

 

 

   “What was that all about?” he asks, and Steve smiles brightly.

 

 

   “I just had to ask a question about the reservation process,” he claims, and this seems to satisfy Bruce, who lets Betty tuck her arm around his and set the pace as they leave the building.

 

 

   Steve trails along slightly behind them, providing a reply to the odd question directed his way and wondering how much truth there is to what he just told Bruce.

 

 

  


	7. Abiding

 

 

 

   Steve’s alone in the house when the phone rings.

 

 

   He doesn’t think much of it – whoever’s calling probably wants to speak to his mother and Steve can take a message – so he follows the ringing to the hall table, picks up the phone and announces,

 

 

   “Rogers household. Who’s calling?” while trying to think where a pen might be in case he needs to take down a number. That’s why he nearly drops the phone when the voice on the other end informs him that,

 

 

   “ _This is Loki. I wish to speak to Steve._ ”

 

 

   Steve manages to save the phone by squishing it between a bony wrist and his ribs, and quickly puts it to his ear again, trying to regulate his breathing and sound like he didn’t just panic when he replies,

 

 

   “That’s – that’s me.” He’s not sure he pulls it off, but Loki says,

 

 

   “ _Good,_ ” and then follows it up with,

 

 

   “ _You never finished your sentence. You just..?_ ”

 

 

   For a second Steve has no idea what the heck he’s talking about, but that is of secondary importance to the complete disbelief he’s experiencing at the proof that Loki’s actually on the phone with him – _Loki_ called _Steve_ at home to talk to him – Loki actually _dialled Steve’s number_ and waited _five rings_ to –

 

 

   **_Hold the phone._**

 

 

   “Have you had my phone number this whole time?” Steve demands, because it’s a completely ludicrous thought and yet it must be true. Loki must have looked up Steve’s details when he got Steve’s card and jotted down his home number just in case – obviously Loki hasn’t kept the card, Steve has no illusions on that front, no one but Steve does things like that – or how else would he be able to call him now? Unless he remembered Steve’s last name and looked him up after Steve’s ill-fated attempt at speaking to him in the library, but that doesn’t make sense either, Steve’s last name is as relatively forgettable as Steve is himself, obviously Loki would have more important things to recall than –

 

 

   “ _I have,_ ” Loki replies, sounding quite shamelessly unrepentant about it.

 

 

   Well, shoot.

 

 

   “...huh. Okay _._ ” Steve has no idea what else there is to say on that front except maybe ‘why’ and ‘Jesus Christ’, and the one he doesn’t think Loki will be inclined to answer while the other isn’t something Steve tends to like bandying about.

 

 

   “ _What was it you were saying to me earlier?_ ” Loki asks, and Steve sets his back to the wall and prays a good answer will magically materialise in his head.

 

 

   He really doesn’t know anymore. He thought he did, thought it was all making sense and looked clear as day, but right now it’s not coming to him and he doesn’t know how to explain that without sounding like an idiot, and he really, really doesn’t want Loki to think he’s mentally deficient.

 

 

   He hears his mother’s key turn in the lock and moves to the kitchen, timing it so that she sees him on the phone and he can wave to her that he’s going elsewhere, and then he can’t remember how long the silence has gone on and ends up saying,

 

 

   “I just wanted to say hello.”

 

 

   Apparently this does not satisfy Loki, who asks,

 

 

   “ _That’s it?_ ” and Steve lets himself agonise over what it is Loki was expecting him to say and whether there was something he wanted Steve to say. He can’t exactly try and explain now though, so instead he just confirms,

 

 

   “That’s it.”

 

 

   It’s a little odd that Loki presses almost immediately with,

 

 

   “ _Are you certain?_ ” and Steve finds that his nervousness triggers his smarty-pants reflex and he hears himself say,

 

 

   “I wanted to talk to you. I thought it might help to start somewhere easy so I went for saying hello,” and then immediately wishes he could go and drown himself because he cannot _believe_ he just straight-up _sassed_ Loki –

 

 

   who doesn’t seem too bothered by it and just opens up a new line of questioning.

 

 

   “ _Why do you want to talk to me all of a sudden?_ ” he asks, and Steve frowns.

 

 

   Now that _has_ to be a trick question. Surely. There’s no way Loki doesn’t see what’s going on here. Steve just can’t believe that as an option. _Of course_ Loki sees right through Steve. It has to be a test. Well, Steve will just have to be as honest as he can about it and hope that’s what Loki wants to hear.

 

 

   “I always wanted to talk to you,” he says, honest but wary, and he’s not prepared for the shift in Loki’s tone when he fires back with,

 

 

   “ _So why do it in front of your friends? You spend more than enough time in the library, you could have spoken to me any day._ ”

 

 

   He doesn’t sound angry, exactly, but the question is probing and slightly suspicious and if Steve didn’t know better he’d say Loki sounds on edge.

 

 

   “You were always right next to _**your** _ friend. I thought maybe you wouldn’t like it if I did it when she was standing right there,” he responds, and sure, that’s part of the reason, but Steve really doesn’t feel like admitting the rest of it because he’s convinced that telling people that you’re actually kind of terrified of speaking to them because they’re too amazing and you don’t know how to cope with it because you’re a terribly awkward person isn’t _the done thing_.

 

 

   Loki doesn’t reply immediately, and Steve’s actually about to ask whether he’s still there when he does speak again, voice completely blank and devoid of positive emotion when he says,

 

 

   “ _So you picking that moment had nothing at all to do with the presence of _ **your**_ friends._ ”

 

 

   If Steve had to guess he’d say Loki’s not exactly on board with that way of thinking, but for the life of him Steve doesn’t see why Bruce and Betty being there was an operative factor.

 

 

   Sure, seeing them together as a couple and seeing how far Bruce had come as a person was great and now that Steve’s had time to re-examine his feelings on the subject he can admit that he felt a little of the old left-behind blues – the _‘always the skinny nobody, never one half of any kind of mutually loving, healthy relationship’_ sadness – but that’s such an ingrained knee-jerk emotional response by now that it wasn’t what drove him to go and talk to Loki at all.

 

 

   If Steve had to pick one feeling that made him do that, it would be the feeling that however much Steve laments not having the sort of thing Bruce has with Betty or even the kind of thing he’s seen Bucky share with about a hundred girls by now, Steve’s never been brave enough to really put himself out there and try for it.

 

 

   The feeling that Steve can’t blame anyone for it but himself – not even the universe for making him who and what he is – at least not until he’s tried to make it happen, and the truth is, he never has yet.

 

 

   Steve’s never had the guts to open himself up to what he just knows will be unbearable, heartbreaking humiliation and go for it like that, and he can try and pin that on whatever he wants but in the end it all comes down to the same thing – his own lack of courage.

 

 

   If there’s anything Steve doesn’t want to be seen as, it’s a coward.

 

 

   There’s nothing on Earth that could make him tell Loki that, and he can’t even begin to touch on the possibility that Loki might see it anyway, so all he can do is rewind to his original confusion and ask,

 

 

   “Why would it have anything to do with them?” because unless Loki can see every awful little secret Steve contains, he can’t see this one, and without that Steve has nothing to hide and no idea what other explanation there could be.

 

 

   “ _Oh, there could be a number of reasons. For instance, you might have told them that our paths have crossed before. I can’t possibly know whether you divulge that sort of thing to the people around you. They could have demanded proof of your word on the matter. People do all sorts of things,_ ” Loki tells him, and Steve is frankly stunned.

 

 

   He’s not sure whether to be horrified that Loki would think like that – and by extension intensely concerned that something must have led Loki to develop that kind of thinking because it’s hardly the mental path most people would take unless they had some serious reasons to deeply mistrust every person on the planet – or really worried that Loki genuinely thinks Steve might have told people about what he and Loki did without asking for Loki’s permission to do so first.

 

 

   “But it’s not their business,” Steve says, completely at sea as to how to even _start_ on what perturbs him about the concepts in the air here.

 

 

   **_I’d never do that to you_** , he thinks, **_who did that to you_** , but he can’t say it because he can’t ask Loki to be that honest with him, and if he’s honest with himself, he’s not sure he could _handle_ knowing.

 

 

   Steve’s not sure he wouldn’t want to somehow hurt whoever or whatever twisted Loki to the point where his thought process became a labyrinth of potential betrayals and apprehensions.

 

 

   “ _Some people really would not care. Others would ensure it became their business. I was simply wondering what your motive was,_ ” Loki says, and his tone is still off, still a little too hard.

 

 

   _“_ I... I guess I just felt good about the moment,” Steve tries, but he’s aware that it doesn’t come out as reassuringly as he’d planned it.

 

 

   “ _I see,_ ” Loki states, and Steve wonders if he really does, if he understands, and he knows that if Loki doesn’t then it’s Steve’s fault for not being able to make him see, for not having the words to explain what’s actually going on. He wishes he could.

 

 

   “Are you mad at me? For talking to you, I mean,” Steve needs to know, because maybe he was out of line speaking to Loki in his workplace, and it’s not like Loki’s obliged to have anything to do with Steve ever again if he doesn’t want to, and Steve really doesn’t want Loki to feel burdened or pressured by Steve’s actions in any way because that would be horrible and absolutely not what Steve was trying to do –

 

 

   “ _No._ ”

 

 

   Loki sounds completely sure of it, and almost surprised that Steve would ask such a thing.

 

 

   “ _Why would I be?_ ” he inquires, and Steve decides on full disclosure because damn it, that’s the only right thing to do here.

 

 

   “I... Because... You don’t owe me anything. I was – I didn’t come talk to you earlier because I wasn’t sure if that was okay and I didn’t want to... impose.”

 

 

   “ _...oh,_ ” Loki breathes, and even though it’s not an immediate, clear response, it still sounds like it was shocked out of him. He says nothing more, though, and Steve wishes he could see what Loki looks like, see if there’s any trace of what he’s thinking playing out on his face.

 

 

   The silence stretches on so long that Steve gets worried, starts wondering whether he’s screwed up, and he can’t help but say,

 

 

   “I’m really sorry, I won’t bother you anymore, I promise,” and he means it. If Loki’s not comfortable with Steve hanging around, Steve will leave him alone. Loki deserves that, deserves to have his wishes and feelings respected even if Steve won’t be made happier by it.

 

 

   Loki really doesn’t owe Steve a damn thing.

 

 

   “ _You aren’t_ ,” Loki says hesitantly, as if he’s voicing a decision he’s not quite settled on yet.

 

 

   “ _Really. It’s fine._ ”

 

 

   Steve hopes Loki isn’t just trying to convince himself that he means it, because Steve’s trying to hold back some form of **_‘praise be to Jesus’_** since he recognises that it’s not the best thing to respond with, and tries to withhold the gushing on,

 

 

   “Great! I mean – I mean good, I’m glad, I – I’m glad.”

 

 

   He’s not sure he succeeds entirely, but it’s a lot less dorky and desperation-tinged than the other option, and he throws caution to the winds and takes a deep breath before very carefully articulating,

 

 

   “Do you... Would you mind if I... If I talked to you sometime?”

 

 

   He’s almost afraid to hear the answer but he presses the phone against his face in the irrational fear that he might miss a reply when it comes just in case.

 

 

   He thinks he hears Loki make a noise as if he’s having trouble breathing.

 

 

   Then he hears,

 

 

   “ _I’m not sure... that’s... a good idea..._ ”

 

 

   Steve’s ears ring with the din of something crystalline shattering violently, but it isn’t tinged with the echo of coming through the phone and it’s not carried on the air around him, so it has to be from inside himself, and it breaks against the walls of his head while he says,

 

 

   _“_ Oh. That’s... Okay. That’s not... I won’t, then. _”_

 

 

   His voice is painful and lumpy and very quiet.

 

 

   He’s never hated the sound of it more than he does right now.

 

 

   There’s a discontinuity in the world.

 

 

   “ _Steve,_ ” Loki says softly, and Steve swallows inaudibly.

 

 

   Odd, when it feels like broken things are travelling down his throat.

 

 

   “Loki,” he answers, and he wishes he could repeat it.

 

 

   “ _I’m –_ ” Loki starts, and the word fractures.

 

 

   “ _I really am sorry. Honestly._ ”

 

 

   It’s nothing like the last time Steve heard him speak that word, and the echoing memory it calls forth ruptures behind Steve’s eyes and clears his mouth of things he can’t say.

 

 

   “It’s okay. It was nice to hear from you,” he tells Loki, and he means it so much it hurts.

 

 

   “ _Thank you,_ ” Loki replies, and Steve nods even though Loki can’t see him.

 

 

   “You too. I’ll – I’ll see you around.”

 

 

   He ends the call and puts the phone down on the nearest available surface without paying attention to what it is, and his feet carry him to the living room.

 

 

   His mother starts to speak.

 

 

   “Steve? Honey who was that..?”

 

 

   She looks up at him. Puts her book down.

 

 

   “Oh, baby...”

 

 

   That’s all it takes for him to hurl himself forward and into her waiting arms, and he doesn’t feel ashamed for even a second that he’s crying like a second-grader with a skinned knee because he’s _done_.

 

 

   His mother holds him until the tears stop and then she kisses his face and hair and tells him she loves him and he clings to her because he has no one else and it’s just nice to feel loved and taken care of for once. He’s earned that.

 

 

   “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, and he shakes his head because no, he doesn’t, he doesn’t ever want to say anything to anyone ever again, nothing good can ever come of it –

 

 

   “Mom, what’s _wrong_ with me?”

 

 

   “Oh, sweetie,” she sighs, all compassion and love, and a stray sob escapes him.

 

 

   “There is _nothing_ wrong with you. Why would you think that?”

 

 

   And there it is. He can’t tell her. He can’t tell _anyone_ that the list starts with everything about him and ends with how none of it’s any use to him or any other person for that matter.

 

 

   He can’t articulate how much he wishes he were different in every single way.

 

 

   “I’m a joke. Nobody likes me. Even _I_ don’t like me,” he cries, and she smiles but it’s sad and hurt.

 

 

   “Baby, that’s not true. I love you. Bucky loves you. Bruce loves you. You’re a wonderful person, and I thank God every day for letting me have you. What’s brought this on?” she asks gently, and he sniffs and hates himself a little more.

 

 

   “I wish I were someone else,” he confesses,

 

 

   “I wish I was like Bucky, or Bruce. Anyone but me.”

 

 

   “Honey, Bucky’s a good kid but I’m glad you’re not more like him,” his mother admits,

 

 

   “I’d go grey worrying about you. You’re my little blessing and I love you just the way you are. I’m so proud of you and the person you’ve grown into. Why would you want to be different?”

 

 

   “I’m _tired_ of being sick and skinny and _weak_ ,” Steve flings at her, and he’s too upset to feel awful about the tone he’s using.

 

 

   “I’m tired of being pushed around and laughed at and treated like a little kid!”

 

 

   It’s testament to his mother’s saintliness that she refrains from mentioning that he’s clinging to her in tears like a five year old. All she does is look at him seriously and stroke his cheek.

 

 

   “Baby, there is nothing weak about you as a person,” she says gravely,

 

 

   “You are one of the strongest people I have ever met. It’s one of the things that make you so special. Even after everything life’s thrown at you, you’re still kind and caring and open to others. That takes a lot more than most people have to give.”

 

 

   “No one cares about that, Mom. No one sees that, all they see is _this_ ,” Steve insists, gesturing at himself disgustedly, and his mother gathers him up and squeezes him tightly.

 

 

   “I see _you_. So do your friends. So does everyone who cares about you. The ones who don’t see it don’t matter and you can’t let them affect who you are inside because they haven’t earned that right. You’re a beautiful human being and it shines out of you no matter what you do, that’s why you’ve always been my hero and always will be,” she says fiercely.

 

 

   “You remind me so much of your father sometimes,” she adds, and Steve shoots a disbelieving look her way.

 

 

   “Dad wasn’t like me,” he protests, and she smiles.

 

 

   “He was. You look just like him. Act just like him, too. That’s where you get your stubborn streak,” she informs him.

 

 

   “You know he asked me five times before I agreed to marry him?”

 

 

   Steve didn’t know that and it’s fairly obvious by the way his jaw drops.

 

 

   “Oh, yeah,” his mother continues,

 

 

   “First thing he ever said to me was how he’d like to marry me, so that one doesn’t count, but after we’d got to know each other a little better and we were a real couple, he had to propose five times before I said yes.”

 

 

   “ _Why?_ ” Steve needs to know, because this is not in keeping with the image he carries of his father as the dashing young soldier sweeping the future Mrs. Rogers off her feet and convincing her to marry him.

 

 

   “I needed to be sure,” his mother says simply.

 

 

   “We were very young and I didn’t want to rush into marriage. I needed to be sure he really knew me before I could say yes, and I wanted to be sure that I could accept everything he came with. His family, his job, his personality, everything.”

 

 

   “But if you loved him,” Steve begins, and his mother shakes her head.

 

 

   “Baby, I loved your father more than anything in the world, but when you’re young and you get an opportunity to make a decision like that, it’s a scary thing. In fact, any decision to do with another person can be a scary thing, and sometimes you can be too afraid to make one, one way or the other. Your Dad was a lot braver than I am, the kind of brave that lets a person take risks and fight for what they want. You’re the same way. You know what’s right and what you want and you make it happen. It’s an amazing strength to have. I’m a little more careful by nature, I need to be sure before I can access that strength. That’s where you get your second-guessing habit from. You make a decision because you know it’s the right one, and then you rethink it, and that’s okay. It’s just fear, and we all get scared.”

 

 

   “What if I don’t deserve to have what I want? What if I’m not meant to have it? What if I’m just being selfish?” Steve asks tremulously, voicing yet another old fear, and his mother strokes his hair out of his eyes.

 

 

   “Sweetheart, you’re a good person. You’ve never been selfish – I don’t think wanting to be happy and healthy makes _anyone_ selfish. You deserve to have whatever makes you happy. If you try for it and it turns out it wasn’t meant for you after all, at least you tried so you know for sure. I’m glad your father convinced me to try. I’m glad I found a person to be young and scared with, and I’m glad it worked out because we did love each other. But if we hadn’t made it, that would have been okay too. Not knowing and not trying is worse than things not working out.”

 

 

   Steve doesn’t reply. He doesn’t know where to start on all the things he’s feeling, doesn’t know whether or not to tell her about what’s happened, can’t decide whether what she’s said makes everything better or worse.

 

 

   “Honey, you know you can tell me anything, right?” she asks, and he nods.

 

 

   “Dr. Erskine wants me to see a therapist,” he divulges. If he can't tell her about right now, maybe he can tell her some of the other things, the simpler things.

 

 

   “Is that something you think you need?” his mother asks, and Steve loves her for consulting him instead of just making the decision.

 

 

   “I don’t know. Maybe. What do you think?” He still needs her to help him, even if he can’t tell her everything that’s going on. He wonders what she’d say if she knew all the details, if she could see everything swirling around inside his head.

 

 

   “I think you’ve been unhappy for a long time and if this is something that can help, it can’t hurt to try it,” she says reasonably, and Steve bites his lip and can't meet her gaze.

 

 

   “If I can’t even talk to you, how can I talk to a total stranger?”

 

 

   “Sometimes talking to someone who doesn’t know you is easier. It separates them from the situation. Gives you a chance to paint a fresh picture,” his mother says, and it makes sense.

 

 

   “Maybe that would be good,” he mumbles, and then, looking at her,

 

 

   “I just... I just want to be happy. Like everyone else.”

 

 

   “Oh, Steve,” his mother sighs, pulling him in and letting him rest his head on her shoulder.

 

 

   “Baby, that’s what everyone else wants, too. You’ll get there. We’ll make it happen. You’ll see.”

 

 

   He believes her.

 

 

   He doesn’t have a choice.

 

 

 


	8. Boldness

 

 

 

   Apparently while Steve’s been getting his heart broken, Bucky’s been formulating a plan of action to get in good with the girl at the library – whom Steve now knows to be Sigyn – and between his mother giving them an excuse by asking them to go and return some of the books she borrowed a while ago and her heavy-handed hinting that getting out of the house would be good for Steve, less than two days after the Incident, Steve finds himself once more being coerced into tagging after Bucky to somewhere he’d rather not go.

 

 

   “What’s wrong with you, you’re all quiet,” Bucky accuses at the halfway mark, and Steve shrugs, too sick of himself to come up with anything better than,

 

 

   “Just tired.”

 

 

   It works, but only because Bucky’s all fired up with confidence and the prospect of landing a date with Sigyn in the near future and thus hasn’t time to more thoroughly address _why_ Steve’s tired.

 

 

   Steve guesses it’s because Bucky’s known him long enough to have seen Steve every shade of tired there is and it’s just not a big deal anymore.

 

 

   He finds himself entertaining the ugly hope that Sigyn rejects Bucky completely out of hand. That way Steve will never have to hear of it again and Bucky can move on to someone else without unwittingly rubbing Steve’s face in the fact that _he_ can’t move on.

 

 

   Today is supposed to be a Loki-day.

 

 

   Steve honest to God swears he’ll cry again if the beautiful bastard’s on the job and as unruffled and cool as ever.

 

 

   ...Loki’s not there.

 

 

   Sigyn is.

 

 

   So is a young man in scruffy sneakers with a weird, floppy haircut, backing away from her while she glares holes in him.

 

 

   “Damn...” Steve hears Bucky say softly, and he isn’t sure what that inflection means but it can’t be good for Steve.

 

 

   He has to admit, though – Vengeful Goddess is a good look on her. Steve has to wonder what kind of monitor that is in front of her since it doesn’t combust when she returns her full attention to it.

 

 

   The sneakered fellow flees the building as Bucky saunters up to the desk, smiles the smile that’s won him a hundred dates, and says,

 

 

   “Excuse me, miss,” in his very smoothest tone.

 

 

   Steve hovers in the background and prays.

 

 

   Sigyn raises her head and treats Bucky to a level, blank gaze.

 

 

   “How can I help you?” she asks tonelessly, and Bucky’s eyes sparkle with charm and mischief.

 

 

   Steve braces himself.

 

 

   “I was just wondering if you could tell me how come there’s nothing in the romantic poetry section that can help me describe how pretty you are,” Bucky declares, the tilt of his head telling Steve that he thinks the battle’s half-won.

 

 

   “Perhaps if you had actually looked you would have been able to present an adjective just ever so slightly less banal than ‘ _pretty_ ’, but I suppose that would mean actually putting the kind of effort into your casual, jejune, sexist harassment that trite facileness enables you to avoid.”

 

 

   Sigyn’s voice is carefully controlled but her delivery is precise and cutting.

 

 

   “Did you have any other library-related queries?” she finishes, and Steve sees the stubbornness grab hold of Bucky and winces when he hears,

 

 

   “Yeah, actually. What time do you get out of here so I can take you for coffee and melt through some of all that ice?”

 

 

   Sigyn’s out of her seat and gripping the front of Bucky’s jacket so fast Steve’s not so sure her chair isn’t rigged somehow, and she yanks Bucky halfway in over the desk, ruining his balance so that the only thing keeping him from getting a mouthful of her keyboard is the fact that she’s holding him an inch away from her own face.

 

 

   “You listen to me, you arrogant, loathsome, cocky, presumptuous degenerate. I come here to work, not to be casually objectified by vile, contemptible, spoiled cretins like you who think their basic biology affords them eternal license to treat the rest of us however they please. Creatures like you sicken me, and quite frankly the notion that I have to share the planet with you is offensive and disgusting. If you ever get this close to me again, _I will **end** you_. Is that clear?”

 

 

   Bucky’s eyes are wide and shocked but when she snarls her last at him he raps out,

 

 

   “Yes, ma’am,” and she drops him like her hand was touching something foul. He has to grab the edge of her desk for support and pulls back and away from her immediately.

 

 

   “Now get out of my library and pray to whatever God you believe in that the next person you try to show your genitals to doesn’t take them away from you. _Out!_ ”

 

 

   Her arm almost hits Bucky in the face as he stumbles back when she cracks it forward to point at the door, and he valiantly manages,

 

 

   “I’m sorry,” before turning on his heel and striding out quickly.

 

 

   Steve hears Bucky’s voice waver towards the end of the apology, but he doesn’t go running after him.

 

 

   He’s never seen Sigyn do that to anyone, ever, and he’s seen her on the receiving end of many a creepy advance. Sure, she’s made a few guys cry and her style of dealing with that sort of thing is generally very much of the ‘peg-removing’ sort, but Steve’s never seen her get violent and he’s never heard her shout.

 

 

   Steve sort of wanted her to just turn Bucky down the way she does with everyone else. He didn’t think she would crucify him like that in front of God and everyone here.

 

 

   It’s really what leads him to approach her tentatively and ask,

 

 

   “Are you okay?”

 

 

   Her eyes, hard and glossy, soften slightly when she looks at him, and her lips twitch and purse as though she wants to smile but is still too angry to try it. Her voice is soft when she says,

 

 

   “Steve, hello, yes, thank you, I’m fine. I’m just... It’s been a trying few days.”

 

 

   Well, Steve can get behind that, at least.

 

 

   “I’m actually really glad to see you,” she continues, and he blinks.

 

 

   “ _Me?_ Why?”

 

 

   She looks for a brief moment as if she’s going to cry, but then her face smoothes over and the almost-smile returns.

 

 

   “I... can we talk?” she asks quietly, and Steve finds himself nodding, because something clearly is wrong and however much he’s aching just at the sight of her because she’s _Loki’s friend_ , she’s always been kind to Steve and he likes her.

 

 

   She gets up and beckons him to follow her, and he does, all the way to the back of the library and the employee break room. She has to unlock it, and he hears it lock up again when the door shuts behind him, but then she’s gesturing for him to take a seat and he ends up on a surprisingly comfortable sofa next to what is probably her bag while she takes a chair across from him.

 

 

   “Steve... I know Loki called you,” she begins, and Steve becomes very interested in not looking at her.

 

 

   “I’m sorry if it’s unsettling that I know, it’s just that Loki and I have known each other for a very, very long time and we’re extremely close. He’s my oldest, best friend. We share an apartment. There really aren’t very many secrets between us.”

 

 

   Steve feels himself blush even as he remembers what Loki said about sharing information with friends.

 

 

   “The point is... Loki hasn’t been doing so well,” she says, and Steve has to look up because she sounds as if she actually is crying. Her eyes are very liquid but there are no tears on her face yet. He can still hear them in her voice, though.

 

 

   “I know you don’t know him that well, and I know he probably didn’t handle the phone call in the best way possible, but...”

 

 

   She takes a breath and reorders her words and then says,

 

 

   “Loki and I... this is difficult, I’m sorry, I don’t want you to feel obliged to listen or like I’m trying to offload on you or guilt you into anything – ”

 

 

   “You’re not. It’s fine,” Steve interrupts, and it is. Whatever she wants to tell him, he’ll listen, and it’ll stay between them.

 

 

   “Loki’s a very special, sensitive, intelligent person,” she says in a rush,

 

 

   “I’m sure you’re aware of that because I can tell you’re the same way. What I hope you _don’t_ have in common with Loki, and with me, is that we’re survivors of abusive home environments. It’s left some – some _scars_ – that we live with every day, and it influences how we think and make decisions.”

 

 

   Steve just stares at her when she adds,

 

 

   “Loki called you the way he did because he was afraid and trying to cut ties. It’s a coping mechanism. We run away, or burn bridges, or get angry. We do these things because we can’t let ourselves be vulnerable – we already feel too exposed most of the time, and adjusting to new things or new people can be too much.”

 

 

   Sigyn leans forward a little and pulls her hair over one shoulder in the closest thing to a nervous gesture Steve’s ever seen in her.

 

 

   “I’m telling you this because Loki likes you. He does. And I know it may seem cruel for me to tell you this, and I apologise for that, but Loki doesn’t know how to cope with it and I need to make sure that whatever I tell him when he’s ready to talk about what’s going on inside him right now is the truth. I can’t do that without knowing how you feel about him.”

 

 

   “You need to know if I can deal with it or if I’ll end up hurting him,” Steve realises, and she nods.

 

 

   “I need to know whether I can safely encourage him to explore what he’s feeling or not. If you tell me, between us, that potentially getting somehow involved with someone who’s damaged the way Loki is isn’t something you think you can do, then I won’t think any less of you. It’s not easy. I love him to bits and I’ve known him all his life – we went through the things that did this to him together, so I can relate completely – but even I sometimes find it hard.”

 

 

   “I like him,” Steve says, and it’s just good to have it out there for a moment,

 

 

   “I thought maybe something had – had happened to him, but I didn’t know...”

 

 

   He can’t finish because he _still_ doesn’t really _know_ , and he’s not sure whether it’s upsetting or a relief to be told that in fact something is the matter with Loki and that Steve isn’t to blame for how things have gone.

 

 

   “I don’t really know him,” he says finally, and it’s completely true, but Sigyn doesn’t seem to think this invalidates Steve’s feelings because she just says,

 

 

   “He’s a very difficult person to get close to. Everyone’s held at arms length. He can’t let people in, and eventually people give up because they don’t have the patience to keep trying or they don’t think it’s worth their while, and it’s why he’s so isolated as a person. Loki doesn’t feel like he can act on the things he wants because even if he can get past the fear of being too exposed, he still feels as though he doesn’t deserve a chance to be really happy.”

 

 

   “He didn’t – I mean, I didn’t – ” Steve isn’t capable of telling her that Loki has instigated every actually meaningful interaction they’ve had. Apparently he doesn’t have to because she analyses his blush and inability to continue the sentence and nods.

 

 

   “Being able to accept and go through with impulsive instant gratification isn’t the same as being able to begin and sustain a real connection to another person,” she says carefully.

 

 

   “Loki can pick someone up and be okay with that and even really enjoy it, but not be able to make himself ask for their contact details or arrange to see them again. In the same way, he can call someone to ask them something he wants to know because they’ve sparked his interest but completely reject the possibility of speaking to them again unless he really has to or he has more questions he needs answers to. Does any of this sound familiar?”

 

 

   Steve nods, still blushing bright red, and Sigyn smiles sadly.

 

 

   “It’s not that he categorically doesn’t want to, it’s that he can’t make himself build connections to others. He can’t take that step. It’s too much, too far, too soon. It’s scary. We can’t open ourselves up to that in case it goes wrong and we get hurt,” she says, and Steve frowns.

 

 

   “I don’t want to be a nuisance...” he tries, and she looks dismayed.

 

 

   “You wouldn’t be – you _aren’t!_ This wouldn’t be like asking someone out over and over and over again until the persistence is just creepy and obsessive. It’s like...” she casts about for the right kind of word and Steve lets her because he wants to hear this. He wants to know so he can be sure and make a decision.

 

 

   “We’re long term projects, people like Loki and I. We can’t just go for what we want or what we’re interested in, and if we do, we can’t work to keep it, in fact we’ll probably do what we can to sabotage it. We require patience. Loki especially needs to be eased into almost everything or else he shuts off and refuses to even try to see the good in what’s happening,” Sigyn says frankly,

 

 

   “He needs to be shown that he’s not just a passing fancy for other people. Loki can’t stand the idea of being abandoned, so he rejects any situation that could end that way. Ideally he needs to be given the option of accepting someone else into his life, and then continually reminded that the offer stands, otherwise he’s not going to be able to trust it or that it’s coming from the right place for the right reasons.”

 

 

   Steve thinks back to what his mother said, about being scared and needing to be sure, and about needing to know that the decision would be based on something real and solid. It’s not so difficult to understand how someone who’d been badly hurt would need even more surety than someone who was just young and apprehensive about making decisions that would influence their future heavily.

 

 

   “So... Me being around... That’s okay?” he asks hesitantly, unwilling to use the words ‘ _moping_ ’ or ‘ _pining_ ’.

 

 

   “Loki’s liked you all along, but you taking the time to write to him, coming here without really approaching him to rub it in his face or make demands or hit on him or anything like that – I have to be honest, it was adorable, but it’s also most likely what’s made all the difference to the way he sees you. You haven’t asked or expected anything of him, and it’s allowed him to get used to you just _being_ there. That’s a good thing.”

 

 

   Sigyn looks a little uncomfortable for a moment and again pulls her hair over her shoulder, gathering it there and smoothing it down with one hand.

 

 

   “I’m only telling you all this because Loki _likes_ you. Because he told me so and I haven’t heard him say that about anyone for a very long time,” she continues, a little more kindly, and then she adds,

 

 

   “And I don’t want to influence how you feel either way, but it’s fairly obvious that you’re more than just smitten with him.”

 

 

   Steve’s eyes widen and he readies the apologies and the sincere statements of how ashamed he is of his own transparency and lack of subtlety or tact, but she waves them all away before he can even voice them, and smiles.

 

 

   “It’s okay! Really. You’re probably the first person I’ve ever seen who seems to like him for more than just the way he looks or who he’s related to,” she states, and Steve gapes at her.

 

 

   “But that’s not fair – there’s more to him than that!” he blurts, almost indignant, and new warmth enters her eyes.

 

 

   “I know. And that’s what I see in you – that you see that. You’re not looking at him like you want to screw him, you’re looking at him like you want to take him somewhere the two of you can have a real conversation. Do you even know how rare that is?” she asks, and Steve bites his lip and twists his fingers together.

 

 

   “I... That’s why I was so glad he called – we never got to actually _talk_ and I just... I just really wanted to. I think I’d really like that – just to get to know him,” he admits.

 

 

   Privately, he’s been feeling even more of a loser for that, but really, while he _has_ been thinking about Loki’s eyes and hands and all the rest of it, _really_ what Steve’s been daydreaming about is exactly what Sigyn says. He’s been spending long hours just imagining what Loki would say in response to certain questions, or how he’d comment on certain issues, or even whether or not he’s into baseball – just laying out these conversations in his mind and wondering whether he’s been getting it right or not. Steve wants to know what Loki’s favourite cartoon was as a child or what flavour ice cream makes him sick or how he feels about heights. He wants to know what Loki will sound like when he’s laughing so hard he can’t stop.

 

 

   Steve wants to know who Loki is as a _person_ because for the life of him he can’t ignore this nagging feeling that who Loki is as a person is someone Steve would really enjoy knowing – someone _worth_ knowing.

 

 

   “I’m sorry if he didn’t handle it that well,” Sigyn apologises, and Steve smiles weakly.

 

 

   It hurts to think about and it probably will for a while. Some things you just have to let sting until they don’t anymore.

 

 

   “I was pretty worried I’d messed up and done something wrong. I thought he’d be mad that I’d spoken to him here in front of people,” he confesses, and Sigyn picks up on what he isn’t saying and tells him,

 

 

   “If he’d been upset that you spoke to him, it would have been because he feared that you were doing it to prove something to your friends instead of because you actually wanted to talk to him. It wouldn’t have had anything to do with you talking to him in general.”

 

 

   “I told him it didn’t have anything to do with them,” Steve informs her,

 

 

   “I didn’t even know they were going to be there. He kind of told me he thought I’d done it because of them, though.”

 

 

   “I’m glad he was honest with you about that. Getting him to be that clear about what he really thinks is usually like pulling teeth,” she grumbles, and Steve feels a little gratified. He also can’t help recalling how some of Loki’s answers seemed almost reflexive or startled out of him before he could properly weigh them, and he wonders if that was because Loki was upset or if maybe he was responding unthinkingly to Steve’s sincerity because he’s not used to it.

 

 

   “You know,” she says thoughtfully, as though considering it anew,

 

 

   “I think that’s why he’s attracted to you.”

 

 

   Steve’s got no idea why in God’s name Loki – however damaged he might be – would ever be truly attracted to someone like Steve, and quite frankly it’s kept him up nights agonising over it, so he’s on tenterhooks waiting for her to go on and elaborate.

 

 

   She sizes him up with a shrewd, weighing glance and states,

 

 

   “You’re honest.”

 

 

   It falls a little flat of being a revelation for Steve. In fact, it sounds a lot like what everyone – _‘everyone’_ being his mother, his teachers, and Bucky – has been telling him all his life; that Steve’s finest qualities are how dependable, tolerant, and honest he is.

 

 

   For a split second Steve wonders how selfish and ungrateful it makes him to feel like just once it wouldn’t go amiss for someone to vary that with a ‘cute’ or ‘has very blue eyes’ or something along those lines, and then he kicks himself for being such an idiot. Steve likes Loki for something besides the way he looks, which is a Good Thing, and _it’s a good thing_ that Loki likes Steve for something other than the way he looks. It’s completely immaterial that the comparison’s not a fair one in Steve’s estimation because Loki looks like – well, he looks like Loki, and Loki is a first-class stunner, okay – and Steve really has nothing to commend him beyond his personality and character.

 

 

   _Well, okay,_ Steve thinks, and it almost reminds him of his mother’s voice.

 

 

   _There are worse things to be liked for than something you can’t change and which is such a big part of you._

 

 

   He’s not really prepared for the slightest hint of his own issues to shine through when he says,

 

 

   “I get that a lot. It makes walking down the street a real problem what with people throwing themselves at me because I’m an honest kinda guy.”

 

 

   He’s already kicking himself internally and hoping he can apologise somehow for being like that, but Sigyn’s in gales of laughter and seems genuinely delighted with his sudden excess of attitude, and she wipes her eyes as she chuckles,

 

 

   “Did you sass Loki when he called you? _Please_ tell me you did, it’ll make my day!”

 

 

   Steve’s a little confused by the fact that she thinks that’s a positive thing, but he did, so he can’t lie to her.

 

 

   “It was an accident,” he explains,

 

 

   “I didn’t mean to. I never mean to but sometimes things slip out and – ”

 

 

   “You’re priceless, you know that? That’s brilliant. Here I am all worried that you won’t be able to deal with his back-talk and it turns out you’ve got a mouth on you as well! Really, I can’t tell you how relieved I am,” she sighs, face bright with pleasure, and she reaches out and squeezes his hand almost affectionately.

 

 

   “It’s no wonder you’ve managed to get so far under Loki’s skin. You’re a lot tougher than you look,” she remarks, and Steve lets the words glow inside him and hover like little happy fireflies. If there’s one thing he’s _not_ used to hearing, it’s that he’s tougher than he looks.

 

 

   Sigyn sobers quickly and appears to gather some secret reserve of dignity and strength about herself, and when she’s collected again she fixes him with a solemn gaze and says,

 

 

   “Steve, I’m not asking you to work a miracle. I’m not asking you to put up with all of Loki’s crap – he really does need to be called on most of it and I’m confident that you could do that. I’m _definitely_ not asking you to commit to being with him for life, since that would be ridiculous. All I’m trying to do is let you understand what you’re potentially getting yourself into if you really want a shot at being with Loki and you keep on the way you’ve been doing things so far. I think you’d be good for Loki, and I think he could be good for you as well, and if this is something you want and you think you can handle it, then I’d be willing to help you make whatever’s between the two of you work. There’s something there, and I think you both deserve a chance to at least see where it could go.”

 

 

   Weirdly, Steve doesn’t think _for life_ sounds all that ridiculous, and he’s pretty sure he’d be able to tolerate whatever crap Loki throws his way, with a little help. He’s not really concerned about Loki’s past – _everyone_ has baggage, whatever’s been done to Loki wasn’t Loki’s fault and Steve’s sure it can be dealt with as it becomes an issue – and certainly not to the extent that he’s actively afraid he couldn’t manage it.

 

 

   What Steve’s worried about is that whatever exists between he and Loki, whatever it is that Sigyn’s noticed or Loki’s verbalised and Steve thinks he’s been feeling personally, whatever _spark_ that might be won’t be enough to keep Loki interested in Steve or impel Loki to invest emotionally in Steve in any real way.

 

 

   Steve’s worried that he might feel more strongly about the matter than Loki does, and he’s not sure he could overcome that if it becomes the reality of the matter.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t want to have his heart broken. He’s _afraid_.

 

 

   He knows what he wants, though.

 

 

   “Could you... Could you maybe tell him I said hello and I hope he feels better soon?” Steve asks softly, and Sigyn beams and nods.

 

 

   “Of course.”

 

 

   Steve rubs his hands together and sets his jaw, feels the determined, stubborn resolve well up behind his ribcage and dig its heels in.

 

 

   “And... could you maybe let me know how he’s doing?”

 

 

   Sigyn’s fingers twitch and she looks like she might start to hover above her seat any moment.

 

 

   “I can. Here’s my number,” she replies, sliding a slip of paper out of her pocket and handing it to him, and Steve lets the sense of something getting accomplished, of purpose and a goal in mind settle into him.

 

 

   It feels a lot better than hesitant, tentatively ashamed longing and futile hopes.

 

 

   “Thank you,” he tells her politely, getting up and straightening himself out, and she rises cautiously, looking unsure but hopeful.

 

 

   “So...” she starts, but doesn’t seem willing to follow it up with anything, and Steve treats her to his brightest smile and reaches out to shake her hand.

 

 

   “I’ll see you in a few days,” he tells her, calmly, rationally, reassuringly, and the look of tentative happiness that begins to light her face spurs him onwards.

 

 

   Why shouldn’t he be able to make things happen, despite the fear?

 

 

   “Thank you,” she says sincerely, smiling properly.

 

 

   “No, really,” he replies warmly,

 

 

   “Thank _you_. Take care, okay? Of the both of you.”

 

 

   They walk out together, and exchange a mutually satisfied look when they part ways as she resumes her post at the desk and he walks on towards the exit.

 

 

   It’s still been a Loki kind of day.

 

 

   God willing, Steve thinks to himself as he walks off with a hardened resolve to his gait, that'll hold true from now on.

 

 

 


	9. Affray

 

 

 

   Steve’s phone vibrates unobtrusively on the table next to his hand. It soon gives up, and Steve goes back to ignoring Bucky’s stream-of-consciousness type rant about ‘ _that damned woman’_.

 

 

   Steve’s not really interested in hearing Bucky go on at length about Sigyn right now, for all Bucky doesn’t actually know her name or that Steve has any connection to her beyond seeing her regularly at the library.

 

 

   Steve has yet to forgive Sigyn for the meddling that almost cost him a shot with Loki and destroyed the incredibly fragile trust between them. Hell, he has yet to forgive _himself_ for going behind Loki’s back like that in the first place, no matter how good an idea it seemed at the time.

 

 

   Loki’s right. Steve had no call to do that, and Sigyn shouldn’t have interfered even if she did think she was doing them both a favour by trying to help.

 

 

   It’s beside the point that Steve told Loki the truth about the extent of his and Sigyn’s interaction where Loki’s concerned. That’s really not the issue here.

 

 

   The issue is how terrified, how betrayed and _hurt_ Loki looked when he understood that Steve and Sigyn had spoken about him and his personal history at all.

 

 

   The issue is how angry he was at the idea that Steve might have spoken to _Thor_ about him, which is as disquieting as it is strangely thought-provoking.

 

 

   The main issue just at present is how blatantly obvious it was that Loki’s regard for Steve in any sense hangs by a very thin thread spun mainly from basic lust – however unlikely that still feels to Steve, it’s still undeniably a factor, he can no longer pretend otherwise when Loki all but announced it to be the case – and a kind of intense, warped fascination that seems mainly based on Steve’s otherness, how different he is to anyone else Loki knows.

 

 

   How different Loki thought Steve was to whoever has made him so bitterly afraid and distrustful of people and his own feelings.

 

 

   The thought that Loki has based such a regard in a judgment of Steve’s character alone and seems to completely disregard the packaging said character comes in is utterly incomprehensible to Steve, who is so used to rejection and being ignored or even openly mocked by others for his appearance and nothing else that he has complexes upon complexes.

 

 

   Steve – whose world is intensely visual as a result of his immersion in art, and who is hard pressed to find anything in himself that could be called attractive or interesting however much he values things like honesty and kindness in others more highly than what they may look like –  recognises the rarity of people who, like him, care for the quality and character of people over their appearance, and therefore it stings even more to know that he almost voided the one thing about himself that Loki seems definitively drawn to.

 

 

   Sigyn said that she thought Loki was attracted to Steve’s honesty. It just figures then that the first thing Steve does is essentially deceive Loki somehow. Even when it looks like he’s catching a break it turns out to be a bad joke at Steve’s expense.

 

 

   His phone vibrates again. He continues to ignore it.

 

 

   Really, he thinks, on that front, Loki’s feelings for Steve, however convoluted and difficult to pinpoint, are probably purer than Steve’s for Loki. Steve is not going to lie to himself where this is concerned – he is desperately fascinated by Loki’s appearance and even if he wasn’t at all interested in Loki as a person Steve would probably still be frightfully attracted to him simply by virtue of how beautiful he is.

 

 

   As it stands, Steve is quite ready to believe that no one has ever been so in lust with another human being as he is with Loki, unless he’s just the sad victim of his own mostly-repressed general sexual frustration and another stellar example of a young man his age who can’t control his urges.

 

 

   Gloomily, he thinks of how he did control them, and feels less like he should be proud of it and more as though it should be added to the ever-growing pile of evidence that he’s just as pathetic as he thinks himself in those darker moments where he resents every Prince Charming who ever reinforced this idea that a real man takes action and lets his passions overrule sense and logic in order to eventually triumph and be rewarded.

 

 

   Sensibly, his brain supplies him with the surety that he did the only right thing by respecting Loki’s emotional state and not screwing things up by doing something stupid like taking advantage when Loki kissed him, or crying over how pretty he is and how Steve isn’t worthy. It was a damn near thing, but Steve managed it, and he takes solace in that.

 

 

   That leads him on to recall how Loki seemed almost _angry_ to be told that he is a looker no matter how tired and drawn he was in that moment, and how Steve hadn’t been able to suppress the flare of his own temper at someone as gorgeous as Loki claiming to be otherwise. It had felt nearly insulting to stand in front of someone so wonderfully put-together well knowing that Steve is absolutely nothing in comparison, not even on the same scale however far one might care to widen it, and then to hear this lovely creature disparage his own appearance as though it was less than what it is.

 

 

   Not until later, after replaying the moment over and over in his head, did Steve realise that Loki honestly _had_ felt ill at ease in his own skin and that to him, in that instant, being told that he was attractive wasn’t something he could hear and internalise positively. Steve can relate to that if nothing else, that sensation of one’s body not quite fitting, not quite cooperating properly, not quite being _right_ , and he knows that nothing anyone else says can remove that feeling once it’s taken hold.

 

 

   He wonders whether Loki ever compares himself to those around him and finds it all as lacking as Steve does when he’s the one doing the comparing, the one standing in front of the mirror poking and pinching and wishing it was all very different.

 

 

   Steve imagines so, imagines that no one ever really manages to fully escape those feelings.

 

 

   He can’t quite stop himself from further imagining taking Loki’s hands and kissing them, turning both of them away from the mirror and telling him that there is nothing about him that Steve could find lacking in any way. Showing him that there’s nothing empty about all the words Steve could find to describe Loki.

 

 

   Loki deserves to get to a place where he can actually believe such things and feel comfortable hearing them. Steve wonders how long that might take.

 

 

   He can’t really blame Sigyn for trying to let him in on what he was getting into – everything she does seems motivated by a desire to protect Loki, and Steve has to wonder whether this is something she’s done since they were kids, or whether it’s only now that she’s older and can actually _do_ something to shield him that she’s so desperate to make up for everything that’s happened to Loki over the years.

 

 

   Steve can’t imagine how he’d feel if Bucky had been abused somehow when they were younger. He’d probably have gone to his mother and told her so she could fix it, but hadn’t Sigyn said that she came from an abusive home as well? That wouldn’t have been an option for her. She would have been going through her own problems, her hands would have been largely tied.

 

 

   Steve can’t even begin to understand how much that must hurt, or even what would be more painful – living with your own horrible personal situation, or knowing someone you love is going through something similarly awful and that there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

 

 

   He doesn’t blame Sigyn for trying to make something go right for Loki for a change, or for needing to be sure about the good character of the people who want to get close to him.

 

 

   Steve knows all about trying one’s best to do right by the people one loves the most.

 

 

   “ – I just can’t believe she’d do that! Who _does_ that? I mean, okay, fine, maybe I _sort_ of get it, but still! It’s not like I _hurt_ her or insulted her or – or anything! I told her she was pretty and asked her out, what the hell was I _supposed_ to do, not notice her at all?” Bucky runs both hands through his hair and then groans in frustration, covering his face.

 

 

   “Maybe she felt insulted anyway,” Steve points out, this break in the flow of complaints leaving him an opening to comment and hopefully offer some welcome insight,

 

 

   “Maybe she’d have preferred if she could just do her job in peace without people bothering her just because she looks the way she does. Maybe she’d have preferred not to be objectified like that.”

 

 

   Bucky scowls at Steve through his fingers.

 

 

   “That’s a bunch of crap. You sound just like _her_ ,” he accuses, and Steve is suddenly _completely fed up_ with Bucky’s tantrum.

 

 

   It’s been _days_ and Steve’s still having to listen to this God-awful _whining_ about how Bucky did nothing wrong and Sigyn overreacted to what was essentially just a little harmless flirting and acted unfairly and how _upsetting_ that’s been for Bucky to have to deal with and how he can’t stop obsessing over what happened.

 

 

   Steve’s sick and tired of hearing about how amazingly well Bucky handled things and how great he is in general and how certain people should consider themselves _lucky_ he even _bothered_ with them in the first place.

 

 

   Steve is sick to death of hearing about how unpleasant it is to be rejected from someone whose shadow Steve has been permanently stuck in since they could barely speak properly and whom Steve has watched succeed socially and personally at every God-damned thing he’s done or wanted while Steve’s had to fight just to get people to remember his name without having to first refer to him as ‘ _that friend of Bucky’s_ ’, or worse, some unpleasant mention of his physical characteristics.

 

 

   “You don’t get it, do you? Everything’s always so easy for you, the first person who tells you no has to be the problem – _they_ have to be the one who’s got it wrong because there’s no way it could be you,” he snaps, and Bucky lowers his hands and stares at him.

 

 

   “That’s not – ”

 

 

   “That’s exactly what this is. You’re throwing a fit because she didn’t fall all over you the minute you paid her a little attention, like she _owes_ you a damn thing for smiling at her and interrupting her workday,” Steve cuts across, angry now and ready to serve up a little overdue truth.

 

 

   “You know what? Maybe she didn’t appreciate you waltzing into her place of work like it was some kind of restaurant and you’d ordered one tall blonde librarian to go – maybe she’d have liked to be treated like a human being with a brain instead of being patronised like you were there to show her just how dumb she’d been all this time not knowing that her real purpose on God’s green earth was to make Bucky Barnes happy for a night or two until he gets bored and moves on to the next girl. Because that’s what you were after, plain as day, and you couldn’t have made it more obvious if you’d just told her straight that you wanted to take her home and use her up until she wasn’t interesting anymore and _then_ she could pack up and go back to work.”

 

 

   Bucky is just staring blankly at Steve with his mouth open, but that’s just as well because Steve’s not done.

 

 

   “You’re so used to everyone doing whatever the hell you want them to that you can’t imagine how anyone else could have something going on that’s more important. _That’s_ the insult. You smile and people bend over backwards to get you whatever the hell you think you need. It doesn’t occur to you that the rest of us have lives and live by different rules, just like it doesn’t occur to you that you don’t have the right to just invade other people’s lives and expect them to drop everything and focus on you.”

 

 

   “ _Steve_...” Bucky says, dismayed, but Steve shakes his head and gets up, swiping his phone off the table and stuffing it in his pocket.

 

 

   “No. No, it’s about time someone told you. You really have no idea what rejection feels like, and maybe it’s high time somebody gave you a taste. You have no idea what it feels like to be singled out for negative attention like the kind she deals with every day, and you probably never will. Being singled out just for the way you look and threatened and bullied for it – that’s not something you can relate to, but she can and so can I, so you know what, yeah, maybe I sound like her. Maybe I can sympathise with having to put up with childish bullies and people looking to take advantage somehow.”

 

 

   Bucky’s goggling at Steve as though he’s never seen him before in his life, but Steve’s only now realising that he’s been holding all this in since he and Bucky were in day-care and the ladies who took care of them used to coo over how adorable Bucky was with his peachy little face and sassy grin, while scathing, pitying comments were made about Steve’s scrawniness and lots were drawn whenever it came time to take care of a poorly little Steve who was once again the victim of some cold or other. Until this moment, the resentment and frustration has always seemed to Steve kind of embarrassing, certainly unworthy of him as a good friend, but now he feels justified in it to an overwhelming degree.

 

 

   Bucky’s selfishness, his casual, careless habit of assuming the spotlight and never quite stepping out of it even at times when by rights he should – Steve’s had _so many_ birthdays where he’s had to face the crushing reality that if it weren’t for his being friends with Bucky, no one would have come just to celebrate Steve even despite the cake – has grated on Steve for years and now that Steve sees this sense of entitlement finally spilling over onto someone else and impacting them negatively too, the scales have fallen from his eyes.

 

 

   For the first time, Steve wishes he didn’t know Bucky at all. For the first time in their lives together, Steve honestly feels that he can admit to how Bucky’s attitude has been contributing to Steve’s disillusionment and ever-growing lack of self-esteem.

 

 

   Steve’s had more than enough of feeling like it was probably nature’s order that he was bottom-of-the-list when there were people like Bucky around. Steve’s honest and loyal and tries his damnedest to be a good person and _still_ people treat him like crap, while Bucky’s been breezing through life on the merit of his appearance and charm and now that he’s finally hit a brick wall he expects Steve to feel _sorry_ for him?

 

 

   Not in this lifetime.

 

 

   The fact that Bucky can’t even seem to grasp where all this is coming from pushes Steve right over the edge and he finds himself saying,

 

 

   “I’d rather be able to relate to that and treat someone like her with common decency and respect than to someone who’s been winning at life from the start and never has to hear the word ‘no’. I’ve been following you around all our lives, looking up to you and wishing I could be more like you so people would like me more, notice me the way they notice you, but the older we get the less that applies. I’d rather be a 90-pound asthmatic than a selfish jerk any day.”

 

 

   He’s at the door when Bucky rallies enough to yell,

 

 

   “ _Steve_ , what the – ” but Steve just interrupts him with a parting shot of,

 

 

   “Here’s a little advice from someone who knows a lot more about rejection than you ever will – keep it to yourself and move on, because no one cares.”

 

 

   Steve is rather exhilarated by the sensation of having called Bucky on his inadequacies and vented a life’s worth of pent-up bile before sweeping off in a righteous huff, but by the time he gets two streets down, it’s ebbing fast and instead he feels like an awful person and starts debating with himself whether he should go back and apologise or something.

 

 

   Weirdly, he thinks of Sigyn admitting to sometimes being infuriated by Loki’s behaviour, and he finds himself wondering whether she’s ever sat Loki down and read him the riot act.

 

 

   He can’t quite picture it, mostly because he can’t really imagine Sigyn speaking harshly to Loki in the tone she employs with people at the library. She loves Loki, Steve doesn’t think she could make herself do it however exasperated she was.

 

 

   It’s the thought of Loki that decides it for him and makes him steer a straight course for home, actually. The lingering thought that Loki, who for all his faults and issues is intelligent and lovely and utterly fascinating, exerted himself to actually admit that he wants Steve – it doesn’t matter _how_ , the important thing is that he said it – gives Steve a strange sort of confidence. He finds that it’s like having a lucky charm in his pocket, touching it is reassuring and strengthens the resolve.

 

 

   However chaotic and vaguely guilty Steve’s thoughts are, the memory of Loki pushing past clear doubts and fears and reaching out to Steve is a soothing balm, and he is comforted by it, anchored to it by the heart while the rest of him feels all adrift.

 

 

   His mother’s not home, which is good because she’d only take one look at him and demand to know what’s happened, and it’s only when Steve is safely upstairs in his room that he really feels how tired he is.

 

 

   He’s not so tired that he doesn’t prop himself up on his bed with his sketchpad and resume work on a quick study he began the other day of Loki.

 

 

   It’s not Loki as the sleek, collected, poised creature who somehow manages to avoid looking ruffled even after serious smooching has occurred.

 

 

   Instead, it’s Loki with slightly-curled hair, shadowed eyes, hollow cheeks and a deeply wearied expression nestling in the corners of his eyes and mouth.

 

 

   It’s Loki hurt and angry and brooding over his betrayal. Beautiful, but terribly sad.

 

 

   It’s Loki with the child he must have been not all that long ago showing through the thin veneer of nebulous adulthood.

 

 

   Steve considers it for a moment and then decides that a Sigyn who knew and loved that child would likely never be able to raise her voice to him in the way she does with anyone else who aggravates her. It’d be nothing less than cruelty, and she’s already made it quite clear that Loki has suffered enough of that at the hands of those he should never have expected it from.

 

 

   It’s while he’s thinking these thoughts that the phone rings, and he rises to go and find it.

 

 

   He doesn’t really believe it’s Bucky, although if it turns out to be, Steve supposes he’s in for an unpleasant conversation – Bucky’s never dealt well with criticism, even of the constructive kind, and Steve was deliberately harsh – because he can’t very well just hang up on him. He rather hopes it might be his mother instead, but when he picks up the phone and says,

 

 

   “ _Hello, Rogers household. Who’s calling?_ ” there’s rather a lot of background noise and it’s hard to pick out the immediate response of,

 

 

   “ _It’s Loki. I’m not angry with you._ ”

 

 

   If there is one thing Steve was not expecting, it’s this.

 

 

   For a moment he considers just telling Loki that he’s honestly not sure Loki _shouldn’t_ still be angry with him, but Steve doesn’t think Loki would be too pleased about being told what he ought to be feeling, and the relief Steve feels personally at being told Loki isn’t angry is too strong to allow him to say anything other than,

 

 

   “That’s incredibly good to know. Where are you? It’s really noisy.”

 

 

   It _is_ , and there’s an unpleasant clattering on the line while Steve is speaking. Loki’s voice carries through alright when he replies,

 

 

   “ _I’m outside. I wanted to speak to you._ ”

 

 

   Steve briefly entertains a delightful fantasy of Loki actually being outside, as in outside Steve’s _home_ , but of course that’s ridiculous and anyway there’s nothing anywhere near here making that level of racket, Steve would have noticed on his own way, so the attitude oozing out of his words when he says,

 

 

   “ _I figured you had to be, what with the noise. Did you just want to tell me that you’re not mad at me?_ ” is mostly due to his disappointment in just how silly his little daydream is.

 

 

   There’s a disturbance on the line, something that sounds like cars and people and the traffic on any ordinary busy street this time of day, and Loki doesn’t speak.

 

 

   When he hasn’t spoken for a little while, so long in fact that Steve fears something may be wrong or that perhaps he may have offended Loki with the tone of his question – which is not something he wanted to do, he honestly is extremely pleased that Loki is no longer angry with him – he says,

 

 

   “Loki?” and almost instantly Loki raps out,

 

 

   “ _I am not angry with you. Only a little bit and you brought that on yourself by being you so I can’t be held responsible for it_.”

 

 

   Steve’s not entirely sure he’s catching all the pertinent points here, because Loki’s meaning remains abstruse to him, and he finds himself in need of asking,

 

 

   “You’re angry with me for being me?” for the sake of some clarification.

 

 

   Apparently Loki seems to feel that he was being plenty clear, because he snaps when he replies,

 

 

   “ _Yes. Keep up._ ”

 

 

   Steve doesn’t particularly want to antagonise Loki, who sounds volatile and on edge despite his assertion that he is not angry with Steve, but Steve would still really like to be in a position where he can actively participate in the conversation and respond to Loki appropriately.

 

 

   “ _It’s fine if it is – I mean, I understand if that’s what this is – but is this still about the thing with Sigyn?_ ” he asks carefully, unwilling to step on any potentially sore toes, but Loki sounds flatly level when he says,

 

 

   “ _It is not. You are not yet forgiven for that, but this is something else._ ”

 

 

   Well, okay. Steve’s not really sure what else he’s done that could upset Loki, but whatever it is, he’s sure it can’t be nearly as bad as the massive mistake in judgment that was his and Sigyn’s brief alliance. Next to that, Steve feels rather sanguine about his ability to weather whatever this other thing might be.

 

 

   He’s not even too broken up about Loki having yet to completely forgiven him for the Sigyn mistake. As long as Loki’s not angry anymore, it’s no longer the end of everything.

 

 

   “So what is it? Tell me what I did,” Steve suggests calmly, finally reaching his room again and getting comfortable on the bed.

 

 

   “ _I _ **am**_ upset with you for going behind my back, but I’m more upset that I am angrier with Sigyn about this than I am with you, and I’m sure that’s because I currently want you a great deal – which shouldn’t affect my judgment on the matter but probably is – and I am annoyed with you for taking this so well, and – are you at home?_ ” Loki says all in a rush, sounding quite agitated up until the final question, which rather takes Steve by surprise. No more so than everything else, though, and Steve finds himself a little baffled by _exactly_ what the problem is, since Loki seems to have outlined several.

 

 

   He has to adjust himself to avoid squashing his sketchpad, which buys him a little more time to absorb everything Loki’s just said, but once that’s done he says,

 

 

   “ _I don’t really understand what I’ve done, but I couldn’t hear everything you said so maybe that’s my fault. Yeah, I’m at home, why? Did you want to see me?_ ”

 

 

   Steve is of the opinion that honesty is always the best policy, and also that difficult or, as in this case, seemingly impenetrable communications are best hashed out face to face.

 

 

   He also can’t imagine a situation wherein he wouldn’t prefer to see Loki and speak to him personally, but that’s secondary to his main priority of ensuring that whatever problem Loki’s run up against here is properly dealt with, and conducting this conversation over the phone when Steve’s not even sure he’s hearing everything Loki’s saying correctly is not ideal.

 

 

   “ _I don’t know,_ ” Loki replies, and Steve tells himself that that’s okay, that he can’t always expect Loki to have a handle on which option he’s most comfortable with. Hell, the same holds true for everyone, especially under the influence of emotions. It just means you have to make sure all the options are on the table, clearly labelled.

 

 

   “ _Okay, well, do you maybe want to tell me all this in person where I can actually hear you properly?_ ” he asks, almost certain that Loki will refuse but wanting to make the offer anyway just in case.

 

 

   Steve’s pretty sure Loki hasn’t been raised to see problems and feelings as something that should be discussed at length, and he’s equally sure that even if Loki had been raised that way, he’s still the sort of person who needs to keep all their cards close to their chest as a security measure.

 

 

   It’s not a problem in itself, per se, it’s just a little more complicated to work with than openness and reasonable disclosure.

 

 

   “ _What exactly are you angling after?_ ” Loki demands, and Steve frowns. He may not know why Loki sounds suspicious and upset, but he does know that he doesn’t like it and that he wants to try and fix it if he possibly can.

 

 

   “ _Nothing. I mean, I guess it’d be great to see you, and I kind of want to know what’s upsetting you because you sound really tense. Are you okay?_ ” he inquires, because Loki really does sound very unsettled, and Steve doesn’t like to think of him walking about in this state.

 

 

   “ _I may have had an altercation with Sigyn. That’s not the point of this. Stop changing the subject_ ,” Loki says shortly, and Steve thinks of his phone vibrating earlier and wonders how many of the messages he’s been ignoring are from Sigyn.

 

 

   “ _You_ changed the subject,” Steve feels compelled to inform him, getting the impression that _this_ is in fact what is bothering Loki and that it ought to be the focus of their conversation from hereon in.

 

 

   “ _Do you want to come over or something? Or I could come and see you, so you can yell at me in person._ ” It’s a last-ditch attempt on Steve’s part, and he knows Loki’s going to refuse, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt a little when Loki immediately says,

 

 

   “ _That’s not a good idea._ ”

 

 

   It actually hurts more than a little, in truth, and Steve feels the fatigue of his earlier run-in with Bucky bear down on him once more, and hears the wobble in his own voice when he says,

 

 

   “O-okay. That’s fine.”

 

 

   It’s not really fine – Steve can’t really come up with a scenario where he imagines he’d be totally fine with Loki dismissing the idea of actually seeing Steve completely out of hand – and suddenly Steve feels much too tired and worn to continue speaking to a Loki who is out of sorts and whom Steve doesn’t know how to help.

 

 

   “ _Could we maybe talk some other time then? I’ve... kind of had a long day, and it’s a little hard to hear you_ ,” he says, feeling as muted as he sounds but unable to really gloss over it with positivity he doesn’t feel because he’s never been really good at pretending to feel anything other than what he’s truly feeling, and certainly not with people whom he cares for and respects – it always makes him feel dishonest, somehow – and for a moment he’s certain that Loki’s actually hung up on him, because it’s suddenly very quiet.

 

 

   The absence of the din from before isn’t the same as total silence, however, and anyway, there’d be a dial tone if Loki really did hang up, so Steve is left wondering how Loki achieved this sudden hush.

 

 

   “ _I’m sorry._ ”

 

 

   The words actually startle Steve, despite not being very loud, and he closes his eyes against whatever Loki’s going to say that’ll probably break Steve’s heart all over again just like last time they spoke like this.

 

 

   This is not a pattern Steve likes, and for a split second he considers just hanging up before Loki has a chance to emotionally eviscerate Steve again.

 

 

   He can’t make himself do it, though, so instead he just holds his breath and waits to be hurt.

 

 

“ _I meant that I still need a little time, after all this. I think I just... wanted to hear your voice while I was thinking about you._ ”

 

 

   ...or not.

 

 

   Steve pulls the phone away from his ear and gives it a critical once-over, half suspecting it of picking up other people’s conversations and transmitting them to Steve in lieu of whatever awful thing Loki was going to say to him, but of course that’s ludicrous and so he replaces the phone, resumes breathing, and says, as calmly as he can,

 

 

   “Okay. I’m really glad you called, then.”

 

 

   This is true. If indeed this is Loki and not someone playing an incredibly elaborate practical joke, because Steve can’t actually picture Loki going from zero to the cusp of an angry breakdown to something that closely resembles downright contrite pleasantness – for want of a better way of describing it – at these speeds.

 

 

   It’s a good thing Steve is lying down when Loki puts his next card on the table, because he certainly isn’t prepared for the softly-articulated, sincere,

 

 

   “ _I didn’t mean to shout at you._ ”

 

 

   Honest to God, Steve’s smile is actually painful and he’s not sure there is in fact enough room on his face to contain the whole thing.

 

 

   If Loki _were_ here, right in front of him, talking like that, Steve would be in serious trouble. There’s no possible way that he’d be able to adequately conceal just how pleased he is with this development. He’s only human.

 

 

   “ _It’s okay,” he manages,_

_“You said you weren’t mad, and it_ ** _was_** _really loud. If you hadn’t yelled, I wouldn’t have heard you at all. Were they fixing the road or something?_ ”

 

 

   He is really, _really_ hoping that Loki won’t pick up on what he’s trying to do here, or on how utterly, gloriously happy he is to be able to just _talk_ to Loki without it all going straight to hell.

 

 

   “ _There were holes in it, but I think they were making them. Does that count?_ ” Loki asks, as if it’s completely ordinary for them to be having a totally mundane conversation and it’s not bothering him in the slightest. Again, Steve gives serious consideration to this being some kind of trick, because that just doesn’t make any sense to him.

 

 

   Then again, maybe this is one way of handling things that’s just about gentle and simple enough to get some positive results. It’s not as if he honestly believes that Loki’s _incapable_ of having ordinary conversations, not at all. It’s just that Loki’s obviously not miraculously no longer upset and this issue of he and Sigyn having argued still needs to be resolved, as well as whatever it is he isn’t happy with Steve about.

 

 

   “ _I think that still counts. So..._ ” he prompts, hoping it’s enough.

 

 

   “ _So..?_ ” Loki replies, and Steve winces silently. Okay, so he needs to go a touch further, that’s fine, he can do that.

 

 

   “Are you okay?” he asks, an open, simple question, inoffensive and posed tentatively.

 

 

   He is suddenly assaulted with a vivid mental image of someone painstakingly uncovering a buried landmine.

 

 

   It doesn’t help.

 

 

   “ _I’m not sure,_ ” Loki replies,

 

 

   “ _I believe I will be, but I’m not there yet._ ”

 

 

   Steve is sort of proud of him for the way he says it, a statement of honest fact. That has to be good.

 

 

   “You sound kind of tired,” Steve observes, holding his breath for a snarled remark, but instead all Loki does is return the observation with,

 

 

   “ _So do you._ ” He doesn’t sound at all riled by Steve’s audacity in making such an observation in the first place. Steve thinks that has to be good as well.

 

 

   What’s not so great is the abrupt reminder of he and Bucky’s argument, which was more like Steve basically telling Bucky that he’s a horrible human being and then just leaving him there to stew in it.

 

 

   The guilt comes rushing back.

 

 

   “ _I argued with my best friend today, too,” he says honestly, hoping that Loki won’t think that he’s just saying that to try and create common ground. That seems like the kind of place Loki’s mind would go to._

_“Do you want to talk about it?_ _” Loki asks, and it’s not until Steve has actually begun to respond that he realises how such a gesture is probably completely out of character for Loki. That it is_ _a gesture._

_“It’s fine, it’s just – ” **a wave half-returned, carefully neutral responses, an offer of attentiveness to an issue of Steve’s which does not directly affect Loki**_ _–_

_“Some things had to be said, so I said them. I don’t really feel bad about_ **_saying_ ** _it, I feel bad about how good it feels to have gotten it off my chest...”_

_Steve hesitates before he decides that he has to acknowledge what Loki’s done, the effort he’s expended, in some other way than just keeping his story short and sticking to the main facts._

_Steve needs Loki to know_ _that he appreciates Loki’s effort in listening to him, even if he’s worried that Loki doesn’t actually want it acknowledged at all, that it’ll make him uncomfortable._

“ _I’m sorry, that’s not your problem and I promise I’m not as crazy as that sounded, I just... It’s been a long time coming. Thanks for asking._ ”

 

 

   “ _It’s fine. I think maybe this was coming for Sigyn and I as well_ ,” Loki replies easily, and Steve is literally overjoyed.

 

 

   “ _It won’t last, there are just some things I need to think about. Did your friend listen to you?_ ” Loki continues, and Steve says,

 

 

   “I hope so,” because he does. He can’t be on the outs with Bucky for good, Bucky is his best friend, spoilt entitlement issues and all. Steve just needs time to cool off and Bucky needs time to digest what Steve’s told him and to hopefully take some of it onboard.

 

 

   _“_ _You and Sigyn will be okay. You love each other. Just give it time. That’s probably why you’re mad at her and not so much at me anymore – she means more to you. It hurt you more that she did what she did because you’ve known her for so long and you two are so close. You’ll be okay soon,” he goes on._

_“You sound very sure of that,_ _” Loki says accusatorily, and Steve has to laugh just a bit._

“ _I_ ** _am_** _sure. And I’m sure she knows you just need some time. Maybe you just have to make it really clear that you need to figure this out on your own so she won’t worry so much_ ,” Steve says, and he’s ready for it when Loki starts with,

 

 

   “ _Has she –_ “

 

 

   “ _She hasn’t said anything to me. I swear. I just figure she’d be upset if you guys weren’t talking and you were mad at her. You know she really cares about you,_ ” Steve cuts across. He’s half expecting Loki to argue, and he’s frankly a little stunned when instead Loki says,

 

 

   “ _Your friend will forgive you. He’d be a fool not to. I don’t believe you ever say anything unless you mean it needs to be said and heard._ ”

 

 

   If Loki’s going to keep coming out of left field like this, Steve’s going to be in serious trouble even over the phone.

 

 

   It’s probably why he sounds a little tender when he says,

 

 

   “Thank you,” but he can’t help it and he’s not about to apologise for it.

 

 

   He has made his peace with the way Loki affects him.

 

 

   Steve just wishes he could either accurately divine whether he affects Loki similarly, or find the courage to actively show Loki just what he does to Steve. Either would be good.

 

 

   Still, the phone conversation hasn’t blown up in his face like a faulty grenade yet, so he’s wary of asking God for any more favours just now.

 

 

   “ _Are you... alright?_ ” Loki asks, and Steve thinks that he has possibly been quiet for too long, and hastens to reassure Loki.

 

 

   “I will be.”

 

 

   “ _Good,_ ” Loki replies, solid and serious and sincere, and Steve adores him for it.

 

 

   “ _I’m sorry to call you like this,_ ” Loki reveals, which is somewhat unexpected at this point, but, as Steve is quick to say,

 

 

   “It’s fine.”

 

 

   Steve is unprepared for Loki to actually go so far as to say,

 

 

   “ _It would be nice to see you, at some stage. Truly. But..._ ”

 

 

   But Steve understands. He understands how hard Loki’s trying, how hard this is for him, how hard it is to be at odds with your best friend and trying to navigate an attraction to someone else.

 

 

   “ _Whenever you’re ready. I get it. You need time._ ” It’s hard not to be happy, because just knowing really does help. It makes it all so much easier.

 

 

   “ _Thank you. Take care of yourself?_ ” Loki says, and even though it comes out a little oddly, Steve thinks he gets that, too. Loki’s trying to figure this out just as well as Steve is. Why it’s going so well, against all expectations, and how to continue to make it work. How to navigate these treacherous waters without injury or mishap.

 

 

   It makes him laugh, how clear it is to him, and how happy that makes him.

 

 

   “ _Sure, I’ll try. You and Sigyn take care of each other,_ ” Steve replies, and it feels strangely effortless.

 

 

   Normal, even.

 

 

   “ _We will,_ ” Loki promises, and Steve is heartened by it, but he still can’t quite let this go without getting one final thing over the line.

 

 

   “Loki?”

 

 

   “ _Steve?_ ” Steve thrills a little at the tone Loki employs to speak his name, but composes himself quickly.

 

 

   “Call me anytime.”

 

 

   There is a pause, and then,

 

 

   “ _Thank you. I’ll... I’ll see you._ ”

 

 

   “Whenever you’re ready,” Steve reminds him, and they hang up together.

 

 

   For a moment, he just lies back and enjoys how well it all went.

 

 

   Then he finds his own phone and checks his messages.

 

 

   _‘I’m sorry.’_

_‘Can you call me? We need to talk.’_

_‘I shouldn’t have involved you. Call me when you see this.’_

_I made a huge mistake. Please call me.’_

They’re all from Sigyn, but the most recent one is from around the time Steve left Bucky in town.

 

 

   He figures it can’t screw things up at this stage if he calls and hears what she has to say – he understands her intentions and he thinks she’ll be pleased to know that he and Loki are okay at least – but she doesn’t pick up the phone.

 

 

   He tries twice more, but there’s still no reply, and Steve decides to let it wait. If Loki’s gone back to speak to her, they’ll patch things up and Steve can always call her later. She may well just be busy.

 

 

   There still aren’t any messages from Bucky, but Steve believes what he told Loki.

 

 

   It always hurts more when it’s someone you care for deeply – the more you love someone, the worse it is fighting with them. Bucky will come to Steve when he’s good and ready – possibly even to give Steve a piece of his mind, because once Bucky’s collected himself, Steve’s pretty sure he’ll want a chance to defend himself and his behaviour. Bucky never has been very good at taking things lying down or just accepting someone else’s opinion. It’s a huge part of why he’s taken Sigyn’s rejection so badly, just like Steve said.

 

 

   It must be really hard, in a way, to be finally told ‘no’ when all you ever hear is ‘yes please’.

 

 

   The part of Steve which is always, always sensitive to the feelings and experiences of others empathises. The rest of him does not.

 

 

   Right now, whatever Bucky’s doing isn’t Steve’s problem or his concern.

 

 

   Steve is going to draw a new picture.

 

 

   This time, Loki will have slightly-curled hair, wide, innocent eyes, and the plump joy of childhood dreams on his lips.

 

 

   It will be beautiful.

 

 

  


	10. Irreversible

 

 

 

   Steve’s not really surprised that it takes Bucky a couple of days to call him up. He is surprised at Bucky’s mood when he calls, though.

 

 

   “ _Steve! You were right_ ,” is what he opens with, and Steve blinks and attempts to slow down what he can already tell is going to be one of those conversations where he feels like he’s three steps behind of the game by replying,

 

 

   “Bucky, hey. How are you?”

 

 

   “ _I’m... I’m okay. Not bad. Listen, you were right and I should have just listened and I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and I’m really sorry, okay? Could we maybe talk about this?_ ”

 

 

   Steve is slightly wary of how energetic and restless Bucky sounds, but the contrition seems genuine if a little distracted, and Steve’s willing to hear him out.

 

 

   “We’re talking now,” he points out, which is indeed the case, but while he’s of the school of thought that feels all important matters should be handled face to face, he knows that Bucky’s just generally of the opinion that dudes don’t call other dudes up just to chat and that conversation is something you do in person or via text message unless you’re being forced to partake of the excruciating business of prolonged telephonic communication by a female authority figure like a mother or a girlfriend.

 

 

   Steve falls into neither of those categories and so he reasonably assumes that Bucky is going to want to keep this short and arrange to meet up so they can mend fences.

 

 

   “ _Yeah_ ,” Bucky acknowledges uncomfortably, as Steve had known he would,

 

 

   “ _But I don’t want to do this over the phone. Can we maybe - could you maybe come into town? Usual place?_ ”

 

 

   This isn’t exactly what Steve had in mind, and truth be told he had other plans for today that didn’t include having an awkward conversation with Bucky in a diner about what a jerk Bucky’s been for a long time now, but however badly Bucky’s behaved in the past, he’s reached out to Steve and that means something. You don’t just toss out people if something goes wrong, you have to make an effort to fix it, and that goes doubly for old friends, Steve knows – because his mother’s taught him so – and it’s not the kind of thing Steve’s comfortable putting off indefinitely.

 

 

   “Okay. I have some errands to run anyway,” he agrees, and the brightness in Bucky’s voice is reward in itself, even if Steve is still wondering why Bucky seems so upbeat despite everything. Steve fully expected him to be at least a _little_ resentful and moody – this is out of character to say the least.

 

 

   “ _Great, me too. How’s five sound?_ ”

 

 

   “Sure,” Steve replies, glad to keep this short even if this means he won’t have as much time as he’d really wanted to get things done.

 

 

   “ _Okay, see you there!_ ” Bucky says, and signs off immediately, as is his bad habit. Steve frowns and stows away his phone and considers how long this gives him to hang around in the library.

 

 

   Today is a Loki-day, and Steve is very anxious to see Loki and Sigyn – if they’re both there – and to ascertain whether everything’s sorted itself out with them.

 

 

   Honestly, he’s been worried since that phone call a couple of days ago, for all he’s still floating around on a cloud of joy over how normally and non-traumatically he and Loki managed to end things. Steve doesn’t like to think of Sigyn and Loki on the outs with one another. It seems wrong and sad somehow, perhaps more so because it’s become so much clearer to Steve since getting to know them both a little better that they really do rely heavily on each other’s love and support. Steve knows any real disruption to their friendship would cause them both severe negative emotional upheaval, and he’s been wishing ever since he and Loki spoke that they’ve talked everything over now and that they’re all squared away and fine again.

 

 

   That’s really what he’d been planning to go and see today – whether or not they seem okay. He’s even sort of been steeling himself to maybe talk to one or both of them, although he’s still trying to properly take to heart what Sigyn told him about it being okay for Steve to speak to them and how they won’t mind or be embarrassed or anything. He’s a little privately ashamed at how major and difficult that idea is for him to wrap his head around, but he’s working on it and he knows that there’s no real actual harm in trying, so today was going to be the day.

 

 

   Now it looks like today could still be the day, only it’ll have to be a brief interlude on the way to something else.

 

 

   It’s while Steve’s shoving his library-appropriate sketchpad into his bag that he feels a smile forming on his lips and tendrils of thought curling towards the shiny golden nugget of truth which whispers that even if Steve doesn’t get to speak to either of them, it’ll be worth it if he can just see for himself that they’re okay and that Loki’s relatively happy.

 

 

   Steve wonders when he became so accepting of how simple his wishes are in this department, and whether perhaps he should be striving for something more.

 

 

   In the end, he muses, it doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that Steve’s comfortable with what he wants and feels, and if having an ordinary, relatively mundane conversation with Loki that doesn’t end in crushed dreams and devastated hopes makes Steve as happy as it has done, then he sees nothing fundamentally wrong in finding pleasure in something as simple as Loki being in a good mood and reconciled with his best friend.

 

 

   He’s walking past the kitchen when his mother calls,

 

 

   “Was that Bucky?” and for a moment Steve is irked that she’d just assume that it was – as if he doesn’t actually have any other friends – when he reminds himself that she isn’t, she’s asking, and that whatever he’s irritated over has nothing to do with her.

 

 

   “Yeah. I’m seeing him when I’m done at the library,” he informs her, and she nods and smiles and waves a flour-covered hand in his direction.

 

 

   “Good. Now promise me you’ll work things out. I know he has his moments, but he’s a good kid. He can’t help not being my Steve,” she says with a wink at her son, and Steve flushes dully.

 

 

   This is precisely the problem – Steve’s been feeing guilty ever since he called Bucky out on his flaws because he’s worried that the way he did it made him sound like he thinks he’s superior somehow, and that’s not what he was trying to say at all. He just wanted to take Bucky down a peg and show him that his ‘problems’ are just proof that he’s a spoilt brat in some respects. Steve didn’t want to get up on any kind of high horse and preach like he’s somehow better than Bucky because fundamentally, he doesn’t feel that he is, really. He’s just a little more in touch with reality and how it affects himself and other people.

 

 

   “Mom... I shouldn’t have said all that stuff. I’m probably going to apologise,” he mumbles, and his mother takes her hands out of the dough she’s manipulating and puts them on her hips, fixing him with a stern look.

 

 

   “Steve Rogers, don’t you dare apologise to that boy. He needed to hear everything you told him, and it was about time, too. You did nothing wrong. If you apologise, you’re making it too easy for him not to work on changing, and he needs to start working on some of these issues now before they get too big to handle. You promise me that you’re not going to apologise,” she demands, and Steve fidgets and looks at his feet.

 

 

   “I’ll try... I just feel guilty, I guess,” he attempts to explain, and his mother’s features soften into exasperated fondness.

 

 

   “I know, honey. That’s your soft, squishy heart making you feel bad for upsetting a friend, but you know what, sometimes you have to upset your friends. Sometimes you have to tell them what they need to hear, and you can’t feel guilty for that because that’s part and parcel of what real friendship is,” she tells him, kind and tender, and Steve looks up at her, brow crinkling.

 

 

   “Squishy?” he asks, and his mother shrugs.

 

 

   “You know what I mean. You want me to stand here and tell you how full of love and goodness you are, we’ll be here all day, and I’ve got pies to make that can’t wait for me to tell you things you already know,” she replies a little tartly, and Steve can’t help but smile.

 

 

   “I love you, Mom,” he tells her, and she looks a little misty-eyed for a moment before she waves a hand at him that sends a fine, sparkling trail of flour swirling through the air like magic.

 

 

   “I love you too, baby. Now come here and kiss me and mind the flour,” she instructs, and Steve darts forward and plants a kiss on the cheek she angles towards him, and then waits for one of his own before leaving her to her baking with an,

 

 

   “I’ll see you soon!”

 

 

   It’s not that far to the library and it’s a nice enough day, and Steve feels better now that his mother’s sent him into the world with a little more ballast to keep his feet on the ground and his head straight on his shoulders, as is usually the case.

 

 

   Initially he’d been planning to keep this bust-up with Bucky from her, but she always knows when something’s wrong and he’s incapable of lying to her, and it’s just... It’s nice to have someone to talk to who’ll tell him the truth but who’ll make him feel better at the same time. Steve can’t imagine where he’d be if he didn’t have his mother in his corner.

 

 

   He’s still thinking on that when he arrives at the library, and he’s both a little disappointed and a little worried when he can see neither Loki nor Sigyn anywhere.

 

 

   Today’s their day, they should be here, unless they’ve changed their shifts or... or something’s wrong.

 

 

   Uneasy and unwilling to think too hard on what the reasons for their collective absence could be, Steve veers off to the far side of the room to the automatic drop-off point, and slowly feeds it the books he’s done with.

 

 

   It’s an easy task, and oddly soothing, and Steve finds himself idly contemplating each item as it slides down the little incline to be scanned and resorted. There’s a really nice anatomy guide which he’s been using to try and acclimatise himself to drawing different body types, and he’s been making real progress on –

 

 

   “...to do with you, just leave me the hell alone!”

 

 

   It sounds like Sigyn, but it’s not the hard, cold, angry tone she usually employs to tell people off. There’s an odd, brittle tone underneath it, and she’s getting louder as she goes on.

 

 

   The pause is likely whomever she’s speaking to getting a turn, but Steve can’t hear them at all. What he can and does hear is Sigyn’s outraged, shaken,

 

 

   “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and how _dare_ you send me – ”

 

 

   Steve’s not aware he’s moving in the direction of the main desk until he’s almost past the shelves and can see it, but he does arrive in time for the main event.

 

 

   Regrettably, that takes the form of Sigyn laying a truly beautiful punch on – _on someone whose jacket Steve recognises_ – who staggers back a little clutching a now-profusely bleeding face while Sigyn shrieks,

 

 

   “ ** _Fuck_** _you!_ ”

 

 

   It drowns out Steve’s barely articulated ‘Oh no’, but he’s already almost there, and just as he reaches Bucky’s side – because of _course_ it’s Bucky, of course, because the universe has smiled upon Steve Rogers for far too long now and has decided it’s about time to show him that this is not a free ride – Loki appears behind Sigyn and grabs her arms so she can’t repeat her actions.

 

 

   Steve grabs Bucky’s arms, too, but not to restrain him. Instead, he pulls Bucky’s hands away from the messy disaster zone his face has become to see how bad it is, and in his frustration can’t help yelling,

 

 

   “Bucky you _idiot_ , what the hell did you think you were _doing_ – ”

 

 

   He gets no further because Sigyn is also shouting, and while she screams at Loki to,

 

 

   “Let me _go_ , I’m going to _kill_ him!” Loki demands to be told whether,

 

 

   “You _know_ him?”

 

 

   Steve winces inwardly at the almost accusatory way Loki asks, but the light in Loki’s eyes is deeply troubled and achingly concerned beneath a thin veneer of anger, and Steve can’t fault him for not getting where all this is coming from – hell, Steve himself has no idea what’s going on, Bucky wasn’t even supposed to _be_ here – and Steve also can’t fault Loki for seeing to his first concern, which of course has to be Sigyn’s wellbeing.

 

 

   Steve can’t imagine what Bucky said or did to her to make her react this way, but whatever it was, Bucky probably deserves what he got and Steve can’t help feeling like he should have seen this coming a mile off.

 

 

   Bucky’s stubborn and proud and Steve wouldn’t put it past him to try and take one last shot at getting what he wants, and as far as Steve can tell, Bucky really, _really_ wants Sigyn, and the fact that Steve called him on his more generally unacceptable behaviour the other day likely hasn’t made much of a dent in that side of the issue. Hell, Steve wouldn’t be surprised if all of that just served to make Bucky that much more determined to have his way on this, if only to prove to himself that he can do it, and Steve has the sinking feeling that he can blame his own approach to the matter for at least some of what’s happened here.

 

 

   Watching Loki, who looks horribly conflicted and concerned and understandably angry, Steve feels like he’s choking on his own sense of guilt and responsibility, and he can hardly bring himself to speak in case he just owns up to all of this being squarely on his shoulders.

 

 

   Steve can’t stand the idea that something he did may have inadvertently led to his best friend upsetting Sigyn to the point where she’d actually want to beat him to a bloody pulp and be unable to resist the urge, and he can’t bear that he’s standing here in front of the person he wants to make a lasting and solely positive impression on, and in front of this utter mess their respective best friends find themselves in, and that he can’t think of a way to fix this or to make Loki feel better.

 

 

   Steve feels like he’s failed Loki, failed Sigyn, failed Bucky, and failed himself.

 

 

   This is a game-changer. Sigyn is everything to Loki – Steve has no hope that Loki will want to associate himself with someone who's friends with anyone who has treated her badly and driven her to this extreme of reaction.

 

 

   Loki is the first and only person Steve’s ever felt this way about – felt so drawn to and experienced such an undeniable wish to connect with further like this.

 

 

   Loki is also the only person Steve’s ever met who really is honestly interested in Steve, despite everything lacking about him which has kept everyone else from wanting to have anything to do with him, and Steve can’t endure the thought of never realising whatever potential that – _they_ – have just because his best friend’s an idiot. That just isn’t _right._

 

 

   If Bucky ends up screwing this up for Steve, he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to forgive him completely, shared childhood be damned.

 

 

   It’s only the memory of his mother urging him to have faith in his own goodness and judgment that leaves him able to say,

 

 

   “He’s my best friend,” and he can still hear the traces of shame in his own voice despite his best efforts.

 

 

   Loki looks stricken, but Sigyn just looks disgusted and doesn’t hesitate to voice her opinion on the matter.

 

 

   “ _That’s_ your best friend? You deserve better.”

 

 

   Steve feels it settle like a massive weight around his shoulders and wants to bow his head and just sag under it. He’s never felt so disappointed in himself – _in **Bucky** , not even after every other stupid or hurtful thing he’s done in their lives, how can he **do** this to Steve, **how**_ – and he’s never wanted to just reach out and touch Loki and plead with him to forgive him so badly before.

 

 

   This is somehow so much worse than when Loki thought Sigyn and Steve had been plotting behind his back. This time, what’s been done hasn’t been done out of love, or because anyone was trying to help someone they care for.

 

 

   All of this has come of anger, and there’s not a single redeeming feature to be found in any of it.

 

 

   Steve wishes, for once in his life he allows himself to really and truly wish, that he had better friends, or even just one better friend. Someone who doesn’t jump into everything they do without a thought for the consequences to everyone around them. Someone who is actually capable of putting others first – of occasionally putting _Steve_ first. Someone who listens to Steve and actually takes what he says on board.

 

 

   He hates it, and he hates himself for it, but he can hear Bucky’s muffled, squelchy swearing like it’s background noise, and for an overwhelming moment, Steve is just completely repulsed and more than anything just wants to take Loki’s hand and turn and walk away from all this to somewhere quiet so he can try to explain all of this to Loki and just for _once_ take something for himself.

 

 

   Loki looks as torn as Steve feels.

 

 

   Madly, Steve wonders what would happen if he reached out and just _touched_ Loki.

 

 

   He has this idea that everything else would disappear, and he’s desperately tempted to just try it.

 

 

   Instead, he says,

 

 

   “I’m sorry, I’ll get him out of here,” and it’s quiet and nothing he wanted while being everything he promised himself and even his mother that he wouldn’t do.

 

 

   Loki’s eyes are wide and glossy, and Steve feels as though they’re pouring something into him that he just doesn’t quite know how to interpret yet.

 

 

   For a moment, Steve thinks Loki might be the one to reach out and make the world vanish around them.

 

 

   Of course he doesn’t. Neither of them do. They can’t.

 

 

   _This is all my fault_ , Steve thinks. _I’m so sorry. Tell me we’re still okay -_

_tell me you still want to see me -_

_tell me we can fix this and then tell me **how** \- _

 

 

_you’re everything I want –_

 

 

  _I’m not ready to let this go –_

 

 

   _please_ –

 

 

   _please_ –

 

 

   **_please._**

****

****

“Good,” Loki replies, but it’s hollow and flat, and Steve can’t hear _Loki_ in it at all - it's just a word. There is nothing good in this.

 

 

   All that’s left to do is drag a largely unresisting Bucky out of the library, and ignore him while Steve calls his mother.

 

 

   “Mom? Bucky... he had an accident. We’re at the library. I think his nose is broken, can you come get us?” he asks, and he doesn’t understand why he feels so detached from it until he realises that he can probably put this respite from deeper emotions down to mild shock and upset.

 

 

   At least it’s good for something.

 

 

   “Outside the library? Stay put. I’m coming to get you right away,” Steve’s mother says, and hangs up immediately. Steve knows they have roughly fifteen minutes until her arrival if traffic’s smooth.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t know if he can stand to be anywhere near Bucky for fifteen minutes without someone else supervising.

 

 

   He fishes a tissue out of his bag and hands it to Bucky silently, who presses it to the worst of the bleeding carefully before saying,

 

 

   “Steve, I – ”

 

 

   “Don’t talk to me. I don’t want to hear it,” Steve says tonelessly, and Bucky frowns but tears up immediately and instead tips his head back a little and looks upwards, frustrated and clearly needing to talk.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t care what Bucky Barnes needs right now. Until Steve’s mother comes and takes over the whole situation, Steve would like to maintain the comforting illusion that he has washed his hands of Bucky for the time being. Talking would ruin that, so it’s a no-go.

 

 

   “Steve, I’m sorry. That wasn’t s’posed t’ happen,” Bucky mumbles, thick and sticky-sounding, and Steve closes his eyes.

 

 

   “Shut up,” he warns,

 

 

   “Just shut up and leave me alone.”

 

 

   “I didn’t plan it – I just... I screwed it up...” Bucky pauses in this unwanted narrative to make a truly disgusting sound and spit what looks and sounds like an important part of his internal facial structure onto the pavement a few feet behind himself, and then says,

 

 

   “I did s’thing really stupid.”

 

 

   “You’re _still_ doing something really stupid. _Shut **up**_ ,” Steve snaps, but Bucky appears to be wallowing in his own misery at a depth that renders him unable to hear Steve at all, and continues on the bombshell of,

 

 

   “I think‘ve been stalking her. Little bit. Didn’t _mean_ to... ‘t jus’... happened. God, I _really_ screwed up.”

 

 

   This is new and horrifying information.

 

 

   If Steve had to prepare a list of the top ten worst and most unexpected things Bucky could ever tell him, the fact that he’s been stalking someone – to _any_ degree – would probably rank somewhere between a previously undisclosed predilection for grave-robbing, and a penchant for committing hit-and-runs in the balmier summer months.

 

 

   It warrants at _least_ a shocked, disgusted,

 

 

   “ _You’ve been **stalking** her?_ ” which seems to come with the bonus of making Bucky flinch and cringe a little before he nods, just once, wincing at the dipping of his own head.

 

 

   “Yeah. Kinda.”

 

 

   “How? _Why?_ How the hell does that _‘just happen’_?” Steve demands, properly outraged on Sigyn’s behalf and more than completely disappointed in Bucky as a human being.

 

 

   “Wanted to apologise,” Bucky begins,

 

 

   “Like you said. I was an ass. Got her number from here – ”

 

 

   “What do you mean you got her number from here? They’re not allowed to just give you employee details, that’s confidential information,” Steve interrupts, and Bucky shrugs slightly.

 

 

   “I... said I knew her. An’ they jus’... Gave it to me.”

 

 

   Steve shakes his head at the sheer idiocy of both this ridiculous action on Bucky’s part, but also the monumental lack of professionalism on the part of whoever just _gave away_ Sigyn’s details to some random person calling at her workplace.

 

 

   “So I called her,” Bucky goes on, and Steve braces himself.

 

 

   “She was real’ mad... Told me t’ go die in a ditch an’ never contact her again.”

 

 

   “Sounds fair,” Steve comments, and Bucky winces again.

 

 

   “I... sort of... I didn’t listen. I mean I did, but... She jus’ yelled at me, so me apologising didn’ count ‘cause she didn’ hear me...”

 

 

   Steve stares at him, disbelieving.

 

 

   “What did you do?” he demands, and Bucky draws circles on the pavement with his foots and mumbles,

 

 

   “Sen’ her a card.”

 

 

   “What, express delivery?” Steve scoffs, because that makes no sense, she’d never have received it already if he’d just sent it via regular post unless –

 

 

   Bucky’s furtive, guilty look speaks volumes.

 

 

   “You...” Steve is speechless for a moment and then when the words do come, he just can’t hold back.

 

 

   “Can you not see how completely _wrong_ that is? God, you _idiot_ , why would you _do_ something like that? Who _does_ that? And after everything, you thought you’d just come here, where she _works_ , and – how did you even know when to come?”

 

 

   “I... kinda worked out her schedule,” Bucky says, so reluctant to speak the words that he almost swallows them, and Steve is reduced to just staring at him again.

 

 

   “How long have you been watching her, _exactly?_ ” he asks softly, and Bucky looks away, shrugs again, and mutters something that sounds like ‘a few weeks’.

 

 

   Steve is stunned and feels a little bit sick.

 

 

   That’s not okay. There’s no way to make that okay. Bucky clearly needs help of some kind, this isn’t normal, this isn’t _right_ –

 

 

   “ _I **know!**_ ” Bucky shouts, and Steve realises that he’s been ranting aloud and that there are actual tears in Bucky’s eyes that are in no way pain-related, and he just stands there, breathing heavily, feeling completely powerless in the face of this.

 

 

   “If she charges you...” he hears himself say, and Bucky shakes his head, hiding the lower part of his face behind one hand as he screws his eyes shut. It must hurt, Steve thinks dimly, with the part of him that isn’t brimming over with shock.

 

 

   “I deserve it. ‘ve screwed up _so_ badly... I didn’t mean to...” Bucky says quietly, and Steve is gripped by a cold apprehension.

 

 

   “Bucky, why’d she hit you?” he asks as neutrally as he can, and Bucky spits another horrible gobbet of what still looks like cartilage and blood onto the pavement and says,

 

 

   “Jus’ wan’ed to ask if she got my card an’ accepted my apology. I really was gonna stop after that, I _was_. She got so angry when she saw me, said she didn’ wan’ to ever see me or hear from me, an’ when I asked ‘bout the card, she – she got really upset.”

 

 

   He sort of pauses as if to breathe, but apparently it’s not that easy and it makes a really gross sound, so instead he wipes his mouth on his jacket sleeve and swallows and then says, indistinctly,

 

 

   “I shouldn’ve said what I did.”

 

 

   “What did you say?” Steve presses, and Bucky hangs his head and aims his response at his own feet.

 

 

   “Said it didn’ matter how angry she got, I’d make her accept my apology eventu’lly, an’...”

 

 

   “And?” Steve demands, and Bucky heaves a great sigh and expels it in the utterance of,

 

 

   “An’... one day I’d marry her.”

 

 

   Steve just stands there for a few seconds before he finally manages to say,

 

 

   “Was that it?”

 

 

   “Think I said ‘so there’ as well?” Bucky says dully, then adds,

 

 

   “Then she hit me.”

 

 

   Steve nods, although he’s not sure why, beyond that it’s most certainly true that Sigyn did hit Bucky, and that it was a beauty of a wallop.

 

 

   “She’s probably going to charge you,” Steve says after a minute or so, and Bucky just crosses his arms and keeps staring at his shoes.

 

 

   “Prob’ly deserve it,” he chokes out after a while, and Steve has no idea what to say to that.

 

 

   Steve’s mother arrives on the scene less than two minutes, later, takes one look at Bucky, and says,

 

 

   “Good Lord, James Buchanan Barnes, what have you been doing to yourself? Don’t answer. I’ll fix that face of yours when we get home. You two get in the car right now. We’re going to have a little talk.”

 

 

   Once they’ve complied and they’re both in the back, seatbelts firmly fastened, Steve’s mother pulls away from the curb and re-enters traffic. She then fixes them with a hard look via the rear view mirror and starts with,

 

 

   “What happened?”

 

 

   “Bucky... had an accident,” Steve says, because he just can’t bring himself to explain every awful detail right now, it’s too much.

 

 

   Apparently Bucky has resigned himself to a prison sentence and a lifetime of deserved misery, because he blankly states,

 

 

   “The mos’ beautiful girl in the worl’ hated my apology so much, she punched me in the face. I deserved it.”

 

 

   “What were you apologising for?” Mrs. Rogers asks sternly.

 

 

   “Being a sexist a – jerk to her,” Bucky replies, and Steve isn’t sure whether it’s a good sign that he’s still aware that actual swearing in front of Mrs. Rogers is not okay. That could just be habit.

 

 

   “Well now, I can’t say I’m shocked,” Steve’s mother says practically, making a right,

 

 

   “Did you learn your lesson?”

 

 

   “Yes, ma’am.”

 

 

   “And does she agree?”

 

 

   “I... don’t think so...” Bucky falters, and he’s treated to another hard look via the rear-view which he recoils from slightly, clearly ashamed to tell her everything he’s just told Steve.

 

 

   “Well, what did she say?” Steve’s mother presses, and Bucky squirms a little.

 

 

   “T’ leave her alone, an’ t’ stop calling an’ never go near her again...” he mumbles, and Steve’s mother sniffs.

 

 

   “And you didn’t take the hint,” she surmises.

 

 

   “...no,” Bucky confirms.

 

 

   “Well honey, sounds to me like you’ve been making a nuisance of yourself,” Mrs. Rogers remarks, and Bucky nods.

 

 

   “Bucky’s been stalking her,” Steve says harshly, irritated beyond words that this isn’t being properly addressed,

 

 

   “For weeks now. He harassed her while she was at work a little while ago, and he’s called the library to get her contact details, and then he called her at home and bothered her even though she told him to leave her alone. He even delivered a card to her. That’s not being a nuisance, that’s wrong and unacceptable, and – ”

 

 

   “Steve.” He stops at the sound of his mother’s voice, and meets her eyes in the mirror. She glances pointedly at Bucky’s side, and Steve does the same. He wishes he hadn’t.

 

 

   “James Barnes, is all this true? You’ve been stalking this poor girl?” Mrs. Rogers demands, and Bucky nods silently, head in his hands.

 

 

   “You answer me when I ask you a question,” she cautions, and Bucky lifts his head and scrubs his hands over his eyes before removing them and saying in a raspy, painful voice,

 

 

   “Yes, ma’am, it’s true.”

 

 

   “You understand that’s not acceptable and you’re going to have to deal with the consequences of this? She could charge you, and you mark my words, if you so much as think about trying to get her into trouble for doing that to you today, then you will no longer be welcome in my house, young man. That I will not tolerate. You will take responsibility for what you’ve done, and you will make it right whatever the outcome. Is that clear?”

 

 

   Bucky swallows and looks at his hands, dirtied with his own drying blood.

 

 

   “Yes, Mrs. Rogers. I understand,” he says quietly, and Steve’s mother nods.

 

 

   “Good. Soon as we’re home, I’ll take a look at the nose. Looks to me like this girl did a real number on you. That’s a solid hit.”

 

 

   It’s all that’s said until they pull up in front of the house, and Bucky’s phone rings just as they’re unlocking the front door.

 

 

   “Answer it,” Steve’s mother instructs, and he fumbles to obey her, but once he’s croaked a ‘hello’ and heard who it is, he says nothing more and just stands there in the middle of the hall until Mrs. Rogers plucks the phone from his hand and takes over.

 

 

   “Hello, this is Mrs. Rogers speaking. I’ve just been driving Mr. Barnes home. Who is this?”

 

 

   She pauses and listens intently, and then nods.

 

 

   “I see. Yes, that’s correct. I’ve just been told the whole story.”

 

 

   She snaps her fingers at Bucky and then puts the phone on speaker and says,

 

 

   “He’d be glad to answer any questions. Go right ahead.”

 

 

   The phone emits a slightly tinny,

 

 

   “ _Mr. Barnes, were you involved in an altercation with a young woman employed at the Public Library this afternoon, at that location?_ ”

 

 

   At a firm but encouraging nod from Steve’s mother, Bucky says,

 

 

   “Yes.”

 

 

   “ _And during the course of the altercation, she struck you?_ ”

 

 

   “Yes. I deserved it, though,” Bucky says as clearly as he can.

 

 

   “ _Would you mind explaining why you think you deserved it?_ ”

 

 

   “I was bothering her – ‘ve been bothering her for a little while. I only wen’ to apologise, but she was right to be mad, and I said some stupid things. Is she... is she okay?” Bucky’s as forthright as possible up until deviating from the script to inquire after Sigyn, and Steve can’t quite decide whether that’s creepy and really dumb to do right now, or oddly touching.

 

 

   “ _You’re saying you provoked her?_ ”

 

 

   “Yes.”

 

 

   “ _And you say you deserved to be hit?_ ”

 

 

   “I really did.”

 

 

   “ _You realise that there’s a possibility the young lady may bring charges for harassment?_ ”

 

 

   “...I know.”

 

 

   “ _You don’t want to bring any charges against her for her actions?_ ”

 

 

   “No! Not ever – no, _listen_ , I should’ve left her alone like she said, but I didn’ an’ she got really freaked out, an’ – and I deserved it! Just – I’m sorry. I’m at fault here. She didn’ do anything wrong.”

 

 

   Steve looks away, can’t keep watching his friend fall apart like this, but the tinny voice says,

 

 

   “ _Thank you for your cooperation, that’ll be all for now. We’ll be in touch._ ”

 

 

   The dial tone signals the end of it all, and Steve’s mother puts an arm around Bucky’s shoulders and leads him into the kitchen.

 

 

   “Well done,” she says quietly,

 

 

   “Now let me take a look at that face.”

 

 

   Steve can hear her rummage around for the first-aid kit, but he doesn’t want to be present while his mother patches up his best friend.

 

 

   All he can think is, who’s going to patch _him_ up?

 

 

   Who’s patching up Loki and Sigyn, who are as damaged and frail as each other and who’ll have not an ounce of spare energy between them at the end of today to take care of anything?

 

 

   He thinks of them, while he trudges up the stairs to his room and lies down on his bed, curled up on his side.

 

 

   He thinks of them, together somewhere, one of them afraid and angry, the other concerned and vengeful.

 

 

   He thinks of how his best friend is downstairs in Steve’s kitchen being looked after by Steve’s mother after everything he’s done, after how little he deserves it, and he closes his eyes and tries not to let it twist into him too deeply to tend and heal.

 

 

   Steve thinks of how that self-same best friend did some of the same things Steve did in Loki’s case, but differently, wrongly, and he wonders whether it really was all that different, whether Loki will be drawing the same parallels even now, and whether he’ll ultimately be repulsed by them and as unable to move past them as Steve fears he may be unable to move past Steve’s connection to someone who has threatened the sanctity of that which Loki holds most dear to him.

 

 

   Steve thinks of all the ways in which Loki is already twisted – likely beyond repair – and wonders how this will take root in that company, and how it will tangle into everything else and eventually make everything vital in Loki impenetrable and choke him slowly from within.

 

 

   In the end he pulls out his phone and sends a message in the only way he currently has to ensure any missive will truly get through to the intended recipient.

 

 

   **_I didn’t know. Are you okay?_**

 

 

   And then...

 

 

   **_I’ll be here when you’re ready._**

 

 

  


	11. Unfolding

 

 

 

   When Steve enters the kitchen, Bucky’s already sitting at the table.

 

 

   His face is clean, his nose has been straightened out and seen to, and the bruising is spectacular.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t speak to him.

 

 

   In fact, he manages to get halfway through making toast before his mother enters the room and says,

 

 

   “Good morning, honey. Sleep well?”

 

 

   Steve doesn’t look at Bucky when he replies,

 

 

   “Morning, mom. Not really.”

 

 

   He doesn’t need to. Bucky’s wince is perfectly visible even to a peripheral view.

 

 

   “Oh, baby, I’m sorry. Are you sick?”

 

 

   “No. I’m okay,” Steve assures her, and she bustles over and gives him a hug, kissing his cheek and saying,

 

 

   “Good. Okay you two, I’m going to work. You know the rules. Behave yourselves and have a good day, I’ll see you later. Love you!”

 

 

   She removes her purse from the kitchen table and leaves in the wake of Steve’s,

 

 

   “Have a good day! Love you too!” and Bucky’s somewhat weaker,

 

 

   “Thank you, Mrs. Rogers.”

 

 

   Steve returns to buttering his toast, but is eventually forced to join Bucky at the table. He keeps his eyes firmly on his breakfast, though.

 

 

   It takes five minutes of that for Bucky to crack and slump over the table, head bowed.

 

 

   “Steve, I am so, so sorry. You were right about everything,” he admits miserably.

 

 

   Steve curves his hands around his coffee mug and watches the steaming surface, collecting his thoughts.

 

 

   “You know...” he begins quietly,

 

 

   “It’s not what you did. I mean, I don’t understand that either and I’m not going to pretend I don’t think it’s totally unacceptable. It’s that as far as I can tell, you never once stopped to think about how what you were doing might have any consequences. Not for you – ” Steve emphasises when Bucky opens his mouth as if to protest,

 

 

   “ _Not_ for you. You’re really not what’s important here. You never stopped to think about what the consequences of your actions might be for _other_ people.”

 

 

   Steve looks up and meets Bucky’s gaze, and he’s glad to see the hurt there because maybe that’ll help give what Steve wants to say something to stick to.

 

 

   “It’s the selfishness, Bucky. That’s the part I really can’t deal with. How you could be so selfish.”

 

 

   Bucky twists his fingers together on the table in front of him and says,

 

 

   “I wasn’t thinking.”

 

 

   “You must have been thinking something. You had plenty of time to since it’s not like you were busy focussing on anyone else’s feelings.”

 

 

   “I don’t – I didn’t mean for it to go that far. I just...” Bucky looks away briefly, and then turns sad eyes on Steve.

 

 

   “I wanted her to notice me. I wanted to prove that I’m not all those things she said I was. I know I was an idiot at first and I took everything she said totally the wrong way because I got mad, but after you explained _how_ I was an idiot, I just wanted to make it right and try again. And it... it got out of hand and I...” he sighs hopelessly, and Steve narrows his eyes.

 

 

   “You said yourself you were watching her for weeks before that. Don’t try telling me that wasn’t laying the groundwork for all of this,” he cautions, and Bucky shifts unhappily, brow furrowing.

 

 

   “Okay. You’re right. I did. And it was wrong. But you don’t understand,” he blurts out, falling over his own words,

 

 

   “You don’t _understand_. The first time I ever saw her, she was turning down this guy, and the whole time I was just thinking how beautiful she was and how she could do better anyway – you’d have felt the same way if you’d seen him, he had holes in his sneakers and he was wearing a hat indoors – so I hung around for a while. Five minutes later some other clown pulled the same move checking out a book, and she turned him down too. I mean, I don’t blame her, but it – I was interested.”

 

 

   Bucky heaves a deep breath and continues,

 

 

   “I came back a couple days after that, and she was there, and I just wanted to see if it’d happen again, so I stuck around.”

 

 

   “And?” Steve prompts, and Bucky’s expression turns briefly pained as he replies,

 

 

   “It did. Some guy in a suit, carrying an honest-to-God briefcase. He gave her a card like he was a big deal and leaned in and smiled all over her, and she tore it up in front of him and went right back to work like he wasn’t even there anymore. And I just thought, _damn_. This girl...”

 

 

   Bucky shakes his head and looks away, gaze coming to rest somewhere on the kitchen counter.

 

 

   “And I thought, maybe she’s attached, you know? A girl like that – that’s probably it. And then I noticed how cosy she was with Thor’s brother, so I figured maybe Thor would know, and I kind of asked him about her. He didn’t really want to talk about it but he ended up telling me he didn’t think she was seeing anyone, and... It kept eating at me.”

 

 

   He looks back at Steve, leans in over the table, folding his hands together like he’s not sure where to put them.

 

 

   “I saw her turn down guy after guy – and sure, some of them were total losses, but not _all_ of them – ” Steve takes note of how this admission seems to take some effort on Bucky’s part –

 

 

   “And in the end, I just couldn’t stop thinking about her. I don’t know why I got so stuck on her, but I just...”

 

 

   Bucky leans back on his chair, crosses his arms, and shrugs tightly, chewing on his bottom lip as if he doesn’t want to say what he knows he needs to say.

 

 

   “I started thinking that I wasn’t like all those other jackasses who didn’t deserve her anyway. I started telling myself that I was different and she’d see that because she’s not just beautiful, Steve, she is really, _really_ smart. Like, sharp, you know? Doesn’t miss a step. And I was an arrogant jerk so I figured because she’s a smart girl, she’d realise I was worth her time.”

 

 

   “So... you just wanted to prove something to yourself? That you were better than everyone else who’d tried and didn’t get anywhere with her?” Steve asks, audibly disgusted, and Bucky’s posture goes rigid as he snaps,

 

 

   “ _No_. I wanted _her_. Yeah, okay, to begin with, I was just being an idiot and I wanted to prove something, but it wasn’t about that after a while. It wasn’t even really about that anymore when you set me straight that day. It was about her.”

 

 

   “So you were just idealising her? Bucky, that’s not any better than wanting someone to prove a point! Either way you’re still reducing them to something empty that has nothing to do with who they really are for the sake of your own ego, and that’s not okay!” Steve insists, and Bucky shakes his head, lips twisting into a disillusioned smile.

 

 

   “No. That’s not – no. You don’t get it,” he says firmly,

 

 

   “When I tried to ask her out, _sure_ , it was because I thought I was better than everyone _else_ who’d tried. I was showing off. I wanted to be the one she _didn’t_ turn down.”

 

 

   The smile vanishes and an odd blankness replaces it, as he continues,

 

 

   “And when she did anyway, I realised, just like you told me, that I was just like all the other idiots. No different, no better, just another in a long line of guys who thought they’d give it a shot. I didn’t matter to her except for being a nuisance and getting in the way of her workday. I only mattered a little more when I wouldn’t leave her alone and she got mad.”

 

 

   The smile returns, and Steve decides that he hates it because there’s not an ounce of reality to it – it _is_ a hateful expression.

 

 

   “I was angry and I complained about it to you and I whinged and in the end it didn’t matter because _I_ didn’t matter. And that made me angrier. But then _you_ got angry with me, and you made me sit up and realise that I was seeing it all wrong, and I realised something else.”

 

 

   Bucky tilts his head and takes a deep breath and says,

 

 

   “I was everything she said I was. You were both right. I was spoiled and selfish and arrogant, and I thought she was something I could just pick off a shelf to show everyone else that I could when no one else had done it, and when I stopped thinking that, I skipped right on to just figuring I deserved her more than anyone else did even though I didn’t try harder or look better or probably even offer her anything different she hadn’t seen before or couldn’t get herself.”

 

 

   “Bucky...” Steve tries, but Bucky ignores him and hunches in on himself a little and goes on.

 

 

   “Well, you both told me and you were both right, and I heard you, and I wanted to change. I wanted to be better. I _want_ to be better. I want to be better so I can be a real friend to you, because I haven’t always been, you were right about that too.”

 

 

   He utters an oddly broken little laugh, and adds,

 

 

   “And then I guess I went a little crazy and turned into a stalker. I swear I didn’t mean for that to happen but Christ, Steve... I wasn’t _thinking_. I just wanted a second chance. I wanted to show her that I can be a real person – that I _am_ a real person. I wanted her to see me. Because she didn’t, the day I asked her out – she didn’t really see _me_. That was just arrogant bullshit.”

 

 

   Bucky sighs and on the tail of it he says,

 

 

   “I wanted to wipe the slate clean so I could have another chance. And I screwed it up because you’re right; I even managed to make proving that I’m not a selfish asshole all about what _I_ want.”

 

 

   “Bucky...” Steve’s not interrupted this time, instead he simply sits there, staring at his best friend, wondering what the hell there even is to _say_.

 

 

   “Steve, I’m really sorry. I know you’re disappointed in me, and I know you’re angry. I screwed up. You shouldn’t have had to deal with all that,” Bucky says heavily, eyes dull, and Steve finds himself reaching over and clasping Bucky’s wrist.

 

 

   “I’ve known you your whole life. I know you’re an idiot, but I also know that you’re a good person. You’ve made a mistake. I’m not going to hold that against you forever, not if you’re really sorry and you want to make it right,” Steve says firmly, letting go and returning his hand to his coffee mug.

 

 

   “Really? Just like that?” Bucky asks in disbelief, and Steve nods.

 

 

   “Sure. Unless there’s something else you haven’t told me. Is there?”

 

 

   Bucky shakes his head, eyes troubled and caught on Steve’s, but the way he says,

 

 

   “No,” sounds as though he wants to make it a question and pose it to himself, so Steve frowns at him.

 

 

   “Really? There’s nothing else?” he presses, and Bucky looks even more conflicted but his tone is just heavy and tired when he replies.

 

 

   “No. Just that I am really, really in trouble over this girl.”

 

 

   “What do you mean? Like, if she presses charges? Look, she probably won’t do that – ”

 

 

   “No, not – not that,” Bucky interrupts,

 

 

   “It’s not that.”

 

 

   “Well, what then?” Steve demands, and Bucky closes his eyes in defeat and very softly says,

 

 

   “I don’t think I can deal with not seeing her again.”

 

 

   “You’re going to have to,” Steve spells out, not entirely certain how this can possibly be unclear,

 

 

   “Do you not understand that what you did probably really upset her? I don’t think you should count on her ever wanting to lay eyes on you again. I thought that was implied.”

 

 

   “I know that, and I can’t tell you how bad I feel about the way I behaved. It’s the dumbest, worst thing I have ever done, and I feel like an awful human being because of it, but I feel even worse knowing that now that’s all I’ll ever be to her – just some creepy jackass who didn’t respect her enough as a person to leave her alone when she told me to.”

 

 

   “So... what? You can’t see her, Bucky. You really don’t have any choice here, unless you want to keep spying on her, and that really isn’t going to do anyone any favours,” Steve tells him, willing to just lay out the hard, honest truth, and Bucky nods dejectedly.

 

 

   “I know. I’m not going to, I promise. I just... I have never felt like this about _anyone_ before. The thought of her just - just _hating_ me, or thinking that I’m essentially just a bad person... Steve, I can’t deal with that. It’s not an arrogance thing it’s – it’s – ”

 

 

   _Obsessive_ , Steve wants to supply, but he catches himself and re-examines it – re-examines all of it.

 

 

   “I don’t know how to explain it,” Bucky says unhappily,

 

 

   “It’s not like just having a crush on a pretty girl. I can’t handle the idea that she’s going to carry around this bad memory of me. I hate that I upset her. I hate that I put myself before her – that I didn’t even consider how she might feel about what I was doing. I feel like the worst person in the world for doing that to her because she deserves so much better, and even though she’d have no reason to believe me, I just... I want to tell her that. How truly sorry I am, how I don’t deserve a minute of her time, how I hope she’ll end up happy and safe and loved somewhere as beautiful as she is someday and that she’ll know for the rest of her life how special she is because she’ll be surrounded by people who tell her all the time just because they love her and not because they want something out of it...”

 

 

   There’s an oddly resigned look in Bucky’s eye as he speaks, and Steve’s not sure what to make of it, or how to interpret what he’s saying, because no, this clearly isn’t just like having an ordinary crush on a pretty girl.

 

 

   Whatever Bucky’s been going through and whatever he’s been feeling isn’t like anything Steve can recall him exhibiting before or anything he can recognise in his best friend of so many years.

 

 

   This is very different and obviously very serious and Steve doesn’t know what to do with or about it.

 

 

   “And I know I’m probably selfish for feeling this way too, because I really just want a chance to tell her how sorry I am so she’ll remember _that_ instead of what I _did_. I don’t... I could deal with not seeing her again if I thought she’d at least gotten to see that I’m not really a bad person and how much I regret being such an ass...”

 

 

   “You don’t... want her to think badly of you?” Steve hazards, really not sure whether he’s accurately grasping what Bucky’s laying down, and the agitated look on Bucky’s face shows Steve that maybe even Bucky’s not quite certain what’s really going on.

 

 

   “...no? Oh, God, I have no idea what I mean,” Bucky groans, burying his face in his hands while Steve watches, at a loss for what to do for him.

 

 

   “I just – I want her to be happy. I know that. And I want to be around to see it. She looks... Steve, she looks so sad sometimes, have you seen it?” Bucky asks from between his fingers, and Steve bites his tongue.

 

 

   He will not speak of Sigyn and Loki’s secrets to Bucky. Sigyn told him those things in strict confidence and it’s already proven to have been a bad decision. They clearly are not for repeating if one wants things to carry on without blowing up in everyone’s faces causing multiple casualties.

 

 

   Steve wonders whether that’s just the nature of unhappy childhoods and abuse – to carry on spoiling things for everybody it touches until everyone involved has died or given up trying to have healthy, fulfilling emotional lives.

 

 

   “I... haven’t really noticed,” he says lamely. It’s not true, and he knows that if Bucky were on his game he’d catch the lie in an instant, but Bucky’s otherwise engaged in the emotional turmoil he is finding so difficult to navigate, so Steve can fib safely to a certain degree as long as he’s not asked to definitely state something.

 

 

   “Thor’s brother makes her laugh, but most of the time she looks angry or sad or neutral,” Bucky goes on, a hint of bitterness stealing into his tone,

 

 

   “They’ll probably end up married with kids that don’t look enough like her.”

 

 

   Steve’s eyes widen, but Bucky’s not looking at him, so he can get away with it.

 

 

   “I really don’t think that’s – ”

 

 

   “But that’s okay. As long as she’s happy, right? I mean, if he can make her laugh, that’s great. I made her scream at me in a public place and punch me in front of children, so I guess I don’t really get to have an opinion.”

 

 

   “Wow. Okay,” Steve manages, just barely under his breath, and then speaking up a little,

 

 

   “Listen, Bucky... It’s not selfish to want someone you... _admire_... not to think badly of you, but I think in this case – I think you need to let it go. I mean, you don’t really know her. I get that all this has been hard on you, but at least some good’s come of it. You’ve identified that there’s a problem and now you can work on it. That way the next person who comes along _will_ get to see you for who you really are, and believe me, that makes for better friendships in the end.”

 

 

   Bucky nods along with Steve’s words, but he doesn’t actively agree with them. Instead, he says,

 

 

   “I don’t know how to pretend that I’m okay with being who I am, and I don’t know if I can convince myself that it’s worth showing anyone else.”

 

 

   It’s not exactly what Steve was expecting.

 

 

   “What are you talking about? You’re a great guy, you just need to drop some of the attitude.”

 

 

   “Steve... you only get that because we’ve been friends since before we could walk right. _You’re_ a great guy. You’re honest and kind and one hell of an artist, and you’re a damn good friend. I don’t even have real parents,” Bucky states directly, and Steve begins to understand.

 

 

   “You think that matters? Bucky, no, that’s not important – ”

 

 

   “It is. I don’t come from anywhere, I don’t belong anywhere except maybe here with you and your mom – you two are the realest, most normal things about my life. It’s always been easier to keep things superficial. I don’t have to worry about not meeting standards, I don’t have to answer stupid questions about how many foster homes I’ve been in or whether it’s been tough growing up that way... It matters. Not just to me, but to just about everyone. People ask. They ask about parents and being a kid and brothers and sisters and when you can’t join in, that’s it. People judge you. Or they pity you.”

 

 

   “You think I never get judged and pitied for looking like this and not having a dad? Bucky, we’ve all got things like that – stuff not everyone will get because they can’t relate to it. It doesn’t make us any different. We’re still worth knowing, we’re still good people, and other people worth knowing can see that,” Steve states, his belief in this solid and unshakeable.

 

 

   This is one of the first things he remembers his mother teaching him. That everyone has the potential to be a good person, and that this remains true even if they’re unlucky and bad things happen to them. He recalls how she likened it to a pair of sturdy, dependable boots. You can scuff ‘em up so they look battered and battle-worn, but a little polish and care and they’ll wear just like new.

 

 

   It doesn’t matter if you can still see a few wrinkles here and there, that doesn’t detract from their worth; it’s just a testament to their quality that you can put them through hell and they still come out of it worth wearing.

 

 

   “But it helps if you let them,” he adds, and Bucky tilts his head and focuses on the picture of Steve and his mother hanging on the far wall.

 

 

   “You know why I can’t get over this girl?” he asks, not giving Steve room to respond and instead fixing him with a regretful but somewhat challenging look,

 

 

   “It’s because she’s special. I don’t think she’d pity me, I don’t think she’d ask stupid questions about what it was like for me growing up, and I don’t think I’d mind telling her all about it even if she asked because I wouldn’t feel awkward or judged talking about it with her. I can’t get over her because if I had a mother, this girl is exactly the kind of person I’d want to take home to meet her. I’d be proud as anything to get to do that.”

 

 

   When Steve doesn’t speak – he can’t, he has no idea how to begin finding something to say in the face of this – Bucky shrugs and says,

 

 

   “That’s the problem. It’s never going to happen, but even just knowing that I’d want it to if it could – that’s not something I can forget or ignore or deal with. And I don’t know what to do.”

 

 

   “Neither do I,” Steve says honestly, the words sort of coming all on their own as a reaction to how shocked and impressed he is by how open Bucky’s being and what’s actually at the root of everything that’s been going on.

 

 

   “Would you tell her, if you could? All of it, like you just told me?” he has to know, and Bucky nods slowly.

 

 

   “Yeah,” he says easily, eyes mournful but sincere,

 

 

   “I would.”

 

 

   “Well then you should. You have to,” Steve decides, suddenly seeing everything so clearly it startles even him, but Bucky’s not in any way visibly excited and his frown and the troubled look on his face speak volumes on how unconvinced he is even by Steve’s certainty.

 

 

   “Steve, I can’t do that. You said so yourself, I can’t go anywhere near her, and you’re right; I’ve done enough damage.”

 

 

   “What if I asked her? If she’d be willing to just hear you out?” Steve suggests, already second-guessing himself, already wondering whether this is the absolute worst thing he could possibly do at this stage, and judging by Bucky’s deepening frown, he’s thinking the same thing.

 

 

   “Steve, she hates me,” he states flatly,

 

 

   “I don’t think it’ll make a whole lot of difference to her that I can’t get right with the way she makes me feel. Why should she care, after the way I acted?”

 

 

   “Because she’s a good person, and I think – ”

 

 

**_I think Loki is going to hate me for this if I’m wrong_** –

 

 

   “I think maybe, you need to tell her what you told me, and she should hear it. I mean, you probably really upset her, doing what you did, I don’t think we can get round that, but – ”

 

 

   _If I’m wrong it’ll be **so much worse –**_

 

 

   “But isn’t it – don’t you think maybe it might make both of you feel better about what happened? I mean, you can get it off your chest and tell her, and as long as you realise she still has every right and reason not to like you or forgive you or want to see you again for the rest of her life, that’d be good for you; you can start over from there. Not with her but in general – ”

 

 

   _Worse for both of them, for **all** of us, Loki will **never** forgive me – _

 

 

   “And maybe it’ll be better for her, too. I mean – it has to be better for her to know that you did it for the reasons you did than for her to go on thinking she was just being harassed by some creep who got all fixated on her.”

 

 

   _Bucky’s my friend. I have to try._

 

 

   “Steve... That’s exactly what I am,” Bucky says blankly,

 

 

   “And I promised your mom I’d leave the girl alone. It’s for the best. It doesn’t matter how I feel – I’m not going to put her through anything else.”

 

 

   “But...”

 

 

   Steve wants to help. To fix this mess so that everyone can be happy again – or at least less angry and miserable. There has to be a way to do that, something he can do to make that happen.

 

 

   “Forget it. It’s not important anymore. I’ll just...” Bucky trails off with a sigh, as though he’s well aware that there is no plan,

 

 

   “I just have to deal with it. It’s past time I accepted that I can’t always have things my way. There’s nothing you can do, even though I appreciate that you’d want to after everything I’ve done.”

 

 

   He gets up, reaches over, claps Steve on the shoulder in that old gesture of friendship and gratitude.

 

 

   “Thanks for being there for me,” he says sincerely, but all Steve hears is the silent resignation in his voice, already rejoining the ranks of all the other emotions he represses daily to get through life.

 

 

   “Yeah. Okay. You’re welcome,” he manages, and looks up in time to catch Bucky’s fraying smile before he leaves the kitchen and Steve is alone with one thought in his head.

 

 

   _Something must be done_.

 

 

 


	12. Trial

 

 

 

   Steve feels exhausted and anxious and ill – a combination that would usually make his current location both appropriate and helpful but which today isn’t something he can bring up at all, which is probably why Dr. Erskine has to say his name four times before he blinks away the haze of fretfulness and responds by looking up and into the good doctor’s kind, concerned face.

 

 

   “Steve, is something the matter?”

 

 

   _Everything_ is the matter.

 

 

   Steve has done a terrible, foolish thing, and retribution is surely nigh.

 

 

   “No, sir. I’m fine.”

 

 

   Steve is not fine. Far from it. Steve is working very hard to suppress the nervous trembles and cold sweat generated from just how not fine he is right now.

 

 

   Apparently, this isn’t hard for Dr. Erskine to pick up on, because he puts Steve’s chest x-rays away completely and breaks out the folded hands and the serious above-the-glasses expression that Steve dreads.

 

 

   “Steve. If there is something bothering you, then I think we should discuss it,” the doctor says reasonably.

 

 

   Steve disagrees strongly. This is not a matter he cares to discuss. It’s not a matter he cares to have illuminated and examined at all, really. In fact, if it had never happened in the first place and Steve could sit here with a clear conscience and free from the horrible burden of counting down the minutes until the result of his own duplicity comes to fruition, Steve would be ecstatically happy and content with all things in life.

 

 

   That’s not the case, however, and the clock directly above Dr. Erskine’s head is staring down at Steve disapprovingly just as Dr. Erskine himself is observing Steve with understanding and compassion, and it’s all too much to bear.

 

 

   “Everything’s fine, sir.”

 

 

   Dr. Erskine sighs in a way that lets Steve know that no one in this office is buying his insistences, as if he needed to be told.

 

 

   “If you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t force you,” Erskine informs him,

 

 

   “But you seem very affected by something and I would be failing in my duty to you if I did not attempt to ascertain whether I could be of help. Now; are you sure there’s nothing upsetting you?”

 

 

   _I’m withholding the truth from someone who deserves it_ –

 

 

  _I’m going behind someone’s back when I know it’ll hurt them_ –

 

 

   _I’ve made a decision for someone else when I had no right to_ –

 

 

   “I – I think I’ve made a mistake, and I think it’s going to hurt someone I care about.”

 

 

   “That doesn’t sound like you,” Erskine comments, and Steve bites his lip and stays silent.

 

 

   “Why have you chosen to do whatever it is you’ve done?” Erskine finally asks.

 

 

   _Because I couldn’t just do nothing._

 

 

   “I... wanted to help someone else I care about,” Steve says quietly. It feels like an excuse rather than an explanation.

 

 

   “That’s hardly the worst reason for acting someone could have,” the doctor tells him.

 

 

   Steve knows this, but having good intentions doesn’t mean that the outcome won’t be horrible and devastating anyway.

 

 

   “Have you given any more thought to seeing that therapist I recommended?” Erskine inquires, and Steve nods.

 

 

   “I talked to my mom about it,” is all he says.

 

 

   In truth, after he mentioned it to her, he hasn’t really thought about it at all. It is starting to look more and more appealing as an option, though.

 

 

   The mention of his mother kicks his guilt into overdrive, and he only listens with half an ear while Dr. Erskine reminds him of the perils of stress and how it’s important that he not overdo things.

 

 

   He tunes back in when Erskine says,

 

 

   “I don’t suppose whatever’s bothering you has anything to do with the impressive bruises on your friend’s face?”

 

 

   “...you noticed that?” Steve winces, and the doctor gazes at him solemnly.

 

 

   “I did. And so, I’m sure, has everyone on the international space station. It’s hard to miss,” he replies flatly, and Steve sighs.

 

 

   “It’s... It’s sort of related.”

 

 

   “I thought it might be. Are you still sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

 

 

   For a moment, Steve _does_ want to talk about it.

 

 

   For just a few seconds, Steve wants nothing more than to blurt out the whole story – to get someone else’s opinion on what he’s done and what he’s about to do.

 

 

   He wants to show someone else the texts that have been sent and received over the past few days, to share his thought processes and how they’ve all led to this hour, and to ask whether he should just call the whole thing off because even now, that’s still a possibility, and Steve is rapidly reaching the point of no return here.

 

 

   “No thank you, sir. I can handle it.”

 

 

   Dr. Erskine sighs, but he doesn’t press. Instead, he says,

 

 

   “Well, alright. I trust you know what you’re doing. Your x-rays are looking very promising, and I look forward to our next appointment – I’m confident that your other results will have improved greatly.”

 

 

   He stands, and Steve mimics him, approaching the door so that they can exchange the usual handshakes, which they do, but Erskine doesn’t immediately relinquish Steve’s hand.

 

 

   “If ever there’s something you need, I hope you know that you can come to me with it,” the doctor says seriously, and Steve nods.

 

 

   “I know. Thank you.”

 

 

   “Good. Well, go on then,” Erskine says, letting go and allowing Steve to slip out of the room.

 

 

   Across from the secretary, Bucky is sitting with his hands in his pockets, dejectedly observing the floor. He barely perks up when Steve addresses him with false cheer and says,

 

 

   “All done! Let’s get out of here. I’m in the mood for muffins.”

 

 

   It is a dispirited Bucky who stands up, rights his jacket, and follows Steve out of the building with not even a word as to how the appointment went or where they’re going now, but this is fine by Steve.

 

 

   He doesn’t need Bucky to talk. In fact, it’s best that he remain quiet, the better for Steve to go over the plan once more in his head and fixate on all the things that could go hideously awry.

 

 

   It’s also nothing to be additionally concerned about – Bucky hasn’t really said much at all over the past few days unless it’s been in response to a direct question. It’s as if all the things he told Steve the other morning utterly exhausted his speaking quota for the foreseeable future and he needs time to recharge.

 

 

   Or at least, it would seem that way if it weren’t for the fact that as someone who knows Bucky well, Steve is aware that all of this is in fact how Bucky’s guilt and self-loathing manifest themselves when he has nothing to take his mind off them, which he hasn’t had since Steve’s mother has decided that Bucky must atone for his recent lack of judgment and his generally poor behaviour by completing various tasks about the house for her as punishment.

 

 

   Steve personally feels that keeping Bucky busy with menial chores is probably healthy and wise right about now, and that the punishment phase of things comes into it when he’s finished doing something and doesn’t get any pie out of it, which is how they’ve traditionally been rewarded by Mrs. Rogers for doing things around the house.

 

 

   The garage has never looked cleaner, though.

 

 

   It is with these thoughts that Steve distracts himself as he essentially leads Bucky to the place with the blue chairs, parks him in one that doesn’t face the doors, and then hovers nervously above another which does as he fingers his phone and repeatedly tells himself that he can’t back out now.

 

 

   It is while he is busily engaged in this that Bucky rouses himself from his apathy and remarks,

 

 

   “You don’t look so good. Is something wrong?”

 

 

   Steve doesn’t have time to compliment Bucky on selflessly ignoring his own issues for a moment to take part in the real world and acknowledge someone else’s troubles, nor does he have time to fret over his troubles being so clearly visible to others, because while he’s shaking his head and preparing his words, Sigyn breezes in and, over Bucky’s unsuspecting shoulder, says,

 

 

   “Steve, hello. You were expecting me?”

 

 

   It has the comical but unfortunate effect of inducing Bucky to turn and look up so quickly that he actually falls off his chair, ending up in an ungraceful crumpled heap somewhere around Steve’s feet and almost tripping another person returning from the bathroom but whose complaints go unnoticed by all as Bucky scrambles to his own feet and gapes at Sigyn, who is very carefully blank-faced.

 

 

   “You – what – _expecting?_ ” he demands weakly, turning to give Steve a dismayed look.

 

 

   Steve spreads his hands and fumbles for a way to explain his treachery that won’t make it sound awful, but Sigyn very smoothly cuts across any attempt he might have made.

 

 

   “Steve thought the two of us should mend fences, and invited me here today for that purpose. Apparently you have something to say to me,” she states, tone businesslike but not wholly cold.

 

 

   Steve takes this as his cue to get up and unobtrusively inform present company,

 

 

   “I’ll just be over here,” while at a gesture from Sigyn a mute Bucky slides into Steve’s vacated seat as she occupies his, and Steve slips away quietly to another table from which he can observe goings-on without being in the way or listening in.

 

 

   He does try to maintain a balance between not gawking and keeping an eye on things, but eventually he’s forced to resort to pulling out his sketchbook and doodling to avoid openly watching them talk.

 

 

   Steve can’t help seeing some things, though.

 

 

   For instance how Bucky doesn’t look at Sigyn, instead keeping his eyes on his own hands which he’s placed folded on the table in front of him, until about ten minutes into the conversation.

 

 

   From then, he doesn’t look away from her for even a moment, as far as Steve observes.

 

 

   There’s also the way Sigyn sits – stiffly at first, as if poised to get up and walk away without a backwards glance – relaxing very slowly until finally she’s leaning forward a little as if actively engaging in the exchange.

 

 

   It takes twenty-five minutes for Steve to catch her smiling just a touch, barely there except for the corner of her eye and the quirk of her lower lip.

 

 

   Bucky doesn’t smile once.

 

 

   In fact, he looks paler and more hopeless every time Steve glances over there, and at one point when Sigyn pulls her hair over one shoulder and her mouth twists sympathetically before she speaks, a truly agonised look flits across Bucky’s face that makes Steve wonder whether – despite things appearing to progress in a civil fashion – this isn’t actually going horribly.

 

 

   He doesn’t think Sigyn would take this opportunity to torture Bucky just because she can – after all, _she_ texted Steve and expressed regret over how things had turned out and it was _her_ idea to have this partially-chaperoned meeting so that the air could be cleared.

 

 

   Steve’s just the enabler in all this. He’s only responsible for setting the scene and arranging for Bucky to be present, that’s all. Everything else – whatever they’re talking about, whatever the outcome is – is on them.

 

 

   Sigyn’s an independent young woman, and if she feels that she wants to mend this rift and hear what Bucky told Steve and said he’d tell her if he ever got the chance, then she’s free to do so. The fact that Bucky didn’t know this would be going down today, here and now, isn’t nearly as bad as both of them going for the rest of their lives with unpleasant memories and regrets regarding what happened.

 

 

   Of course, Sigyn made it clear that she reserves the right to break Bucky’s nose a second time if he somehow manages to screw this one up as well and that there won’t be any second chances after this – she’s basing her presence here today as well as her willingness to give Bucky the benefit of the doubt and hear him out on how trustworthy she finds Steve and how she doesn’t think Steve would vouch for Bucky as his best friend if Bucky were as awful as he’s appeared to her so far.

 

 

   That’s a lot of responsibility.

 

 

   It doesn’t quite touch the tentative worry niggling at the back of Steve’s mind that if he and Loki end up a proper couple, eventually Sigyn and Bucky will be thrown together again and it’ll be beyond awkward if that ends in assault and screaming, but it’s still a rather large weight to carry and Steve’s starting to feel the strain.

 

 

   Oh, God, if this goes badly, it won’t just be Steve’s credibility on the line –

 

 

   _and Steve **knows** Loki relies on Sigyn’s opinion, there’s no **telling** the damage possible if she comes away from this deciding that Steve has incredibly poor judgment in the people he considers his friends and that no one who judges that poorly is worthy of or should be trusted near Loki_ –

 

 

   - it’ll be Bucky’s happiness and his trust in Steve, as well as Sigyn’s faith in Steve’s basic decency, and if Loki ever finds out...

 

 

   That was even the first thing Sigyn said when she texted a few days ago – ‘ _Loki can’t know about this_.’

 

 

   It has been eating away at Steve’s nerves ever since, because even though he understands Sigyn’s reasons for this complete secrecy, it feels like lying, and last time Steve and Sigyn kept something between them from Loki...

 

 

   Jesus, Steve still has nightmares about that. Just thinking about it – _that’s the last time Loki kissed him and it **hurts**_ – is enough to leave him a sleepless wreck staring at the ceiling obsessing over every last detail of the encounter and what can possibly have led Loki to that point in his life.

 

 

   But this, _this_ when Steve promised he’d never do anything like that again, when Loki’s respect for and belief in Steve hangs in the balance – because it does, Steve knows that; if this ever comes to light and it turns out no one told Loki because Sigyn wanted it that way and Steve kept it back because he couldn’t see a way to let Loki know what they were doing, that’ll be the end – this is somehow worse.

 

 

   Steve feels like he’s lying. He feels like he lied to Bucky, and like he’s lying to Loki as well – as though he lied to Loki that day in the library when he promised he’d never go behind Loki’s back.

 

 

   He’s been going behind Loki’s back all week when every text from or to Sigyn discussing today and the potentials of today was sandwiched between one from or to Loki.

 

 

   Because the universe is cruel, Steve’s phone vibrates merrily on the table next to his hand even as he’s thinking of this, and a quick inspection reveals a text from Loki.

 

 

   ‘ _I’d like to see you. Is that possible?_ ’

 

 

   **_Oh_** , the universe is cruel.

 

 

   Steve almost jumps out of his skin when his phone vibrates again with a new message – it can’t be from Loki, Loki doesn’t send two things in a row, he _considers_ his messages before he sends them, he doesn’t –

 

 

   It’s from Loki.

 

 

   ‘ _Sigyn’s not here_ ’ –

 

 

   **_Sweet merciful Lord, he knows_** –

 

 

   ‘ _you could come over._ ’

 

 

   The breath rushing back into Steve’s chest stings painfully and his eyes fill with tears, which he hastily blinks away as he runs through the words thrice more in quick succession.

 

 

   There’s no question – this is God punishing Steve for lying.

 

 

   Steve has made a grievous error in judgment and lied to two people he cares for deeply, and in exchange, the one thing he wants more than just about anything else in the world and which he has waited _so long_ for is being dangled in front of him, and there’s no way he can reach out and take it.

 

 

   Steve can’t go. He has to stay here and witness the results of his deception play out.

 

 

   And now, because the universe is teaching him not to trifle with it, he has to sit here and watch the results of his deception play out knowing that somewhere across town, Loki is all alone because Steve engineered this meeting which has led Sigyn to leave the apartment she shares with Loki.

 

 

   Not only that, but Loki is all alone and has taken it into his head that he’d quite like to be all alone _with Steve_.

 

 

   Steve has dreamt of moments like this.

 

 

   He has legitimately **_dreamt_** of getting a text – _or breathy phone call, whatever, the details aren’t important_ – from Loki professing his desire to see Steve in person, in _private_ , and telling him to come over at his earliest convenience.

 

 

   This is the Holy Grail of text messages – not just because Steve had begun to believe it couldn’t ever manifest in the physical realm, but also because it’s perfect.

 

 

   It’s a clear suggestion, there’s no pressure, there are no stated expectations – there might be some unstated expectations, but Steve could pretend they didn’t exist if they weren’t explained to him, he could manage that – and Loki’s not prefacing it with any kind of disclaimer.

 

 

   There’s no ‘just as friends’ or ‘to talk’ or anything like that.

 

 

   It’s so... _open_.

 

 

   And Steve can’t go.

 

 

   He can’t leave Bucky here alone for obvious reasons, and he promised Sigyn that he’d stay and oversee things.

 

 

   Even if he did leave – and part of him wants to ask for directions so he can just _go_ and to hell with anyone else, to hell with everyone and everything but he and Loki – Sigyn will probably head home after this, or at least so Steve assumes, and not only would that not give Steve and Loki a whole lot of time together, but it’d also be incredibly awkward to be there when she arrived.

 

 

   Steve’s feeling faint from the stress and dishonesty of it all.

 

 

   He can’t imagine how anyone can have affairs for the excitement of it. He has a strong suspicion that he’d keel over from a heart attack if he ever tried anything as sneaky and wrong as that.

 

 

   In the end, he wipes his hands on a napkin and writes back, ‘ _I’d really like to, but I don’t know if I can make it. I’m in town for an appointment._ ’

 

 

   It’s so close to actually being completely true and transparent that Steve feels a little sick.

 

 

   He feels even worse when, not two minutes later, Loki replies.

 

 

   ‘ _That’s unfortunate. I honestly do want to see you. It doesn’t have to be for long_.’

 

 

   Steve wonders if anyone will notice if he has a little cry all to himself over the injustice of the situation.

 

 

   Here he is, trying to do a good thing for others – _lying to make it happen_ – and now this.

 

 

   It doesn’t help that he for some reason has a very vivid mental image of Loki in a tasteful apartment somewhere downtown wearing a green shirt that brings out his eyes and with his hair down amid flattering lighting and sprawled on a sofa to contend with.

 

 

   He believes it may have something to do with a sketch he’s been working on and which is currently hidden at home.

 

 

   Steve carefully types out ‘ _I’m sorry – I really wish I could but I don’t think I can make it work. Could we reschedule?_ ’ but he doesn’t send it.

 

 

   Out of the corner of his eye, Sigyn rises, shakes back her hair rather beautifully, and then reaches out and clasps Bucky’s hand in farewell.

 

 

   Steve turns in his seat, and she approaches, an odd little smile in place.

 

 

   “Your friend’s not so bad,” she murmurs,

 

 

   “Thank you for helping with this.”

 

 

   For a second Steve contemplates just saying ‘ _This took ten years off my life and cost me seeing Loki_ ’, but instead he says,

 

 

   “You’re welcome.”

 

 

   He’s glad it went well. He’s also glad he could help. But now he knows he couldn’t have taken Loki up on his offer. Sigyn will want to go home. She’ll want to recuperate from all this – Steve doesn’t think it’d be presumptuous to think that this encounter took something out of her; she admitted the thought of it had during the text-and-plan phase of things, so of course carrying it out in real life would have some effect.

 

 

   She should be able to do that.

 

 

   And it probably would have been a bad idea for Steve to see Loki in this state on this day anyway – all raw and exposed and guilty like this, he’d never have been able to conceal that or to just enjoy being with Loki.

 

 

   No, this is for the best. Maybe it’s not so much punishment as it is reminding Steve what he’s gone through this for.

 

 

   “Well... thank you anyway,” she says quietly, a warmth in her eyes that seems to communicate that if they weren’t in public she might consider hugging him, but she smiles and then she’s gone, and Steve presses ‘ ** _send_** ’, and rejoins Bucky, who is still standing by the table, face pale and blank.

 

 

    Steve pastes a smile on, but he can feel how nervous it is, and it’s in his voice as well when he asks,

 

 

   “So... how’d it go?”

 

 

   The way Bucky looks at him is equal parts betrayal and disappointment, but his tone is all broken, disjointed hurt when he replies,

 

 

   “How could you do this to me?” and he brushes past Steve with his head down as he leaves, gait heavy but quick, and Steve is left standing there uncomprehending as his phone vibrates with a new message.

 

 

   ‘ _Of course. Just tell me when._ ’

 

 

  


	13. Undervaluation

 

 

 

   This isn’t like any fight Steve has ever had with Bucky, and he has no idea what to do with it.

 

 

   For starters, apparently he and Bucky are only on the outs with one another privately – in public, it’s as though nothing’s changed between them at all, only... that’s not really true.

 

 

   Bucky’s louder and brighter and quicker to join the others in whatever it is they’re amusing themselves with than he ever was before, almost as if he’s choosing to make the contrast between the way he is around everyone else and the way he is with Steve that much more obvious.

 

 

   In private, Bucky doesn’t acknowledge Steve at all. It goes far beyond simply ignoring him – it’s like Steve has never existed and Bucky wouldn’t care either way.

 

 

   Bucky’s never acted like this before, not even during their worst disagreements, and Steve is starting to fear that things won’t ever go back to normal – that Bucky’s going to hold this against Steve for the rest of their lives.

 

 

   Steve wishes he felt less guilty so he didn’t catch himself occasionally thinking he might deserve that a little.

 

 

   Another thing Steve can’t help but notice is how much more charming and flirtatious he is around the many young ladies who make a habit of flocking to Stark’s little group of acquaintances as well, and he begins to fear that Bucky’s doing it on purpose to take his mind off everything that happened with Sigyn, until Steve realises that – uncharacteristically – it really is all talk.

 

 

   Bucky doesn’t follow up on a single one of the clear invitations he gets.

 

 

   When Stark makes a throw-away comment to that effect, Bucky just shrugs and laughs it off and says something about how he doesn’t have to jump at every chance that presents itself like _some_ people, but Steve wonders whether there might not actually be a very different motive behind this.

 

 

   “Fair enough – but I expect you to bring some game to my birthday at least!” Stark warns, mock-seriousness in his voice and propelling the finger he wags in Bucky’s direction, and then it seems like no time at all elapses before Steve finds himself skulking on the landing as his mother compliments Bucky on how nice he looks downstairs in the hall, and asks him where he’s off to.

 

 

_Tony Stark’s birthday party –_

_Don’t know when I’ll be back –_

_I promise I’ll be good –_

 

 

   Steve hears all of it, and he thinks how such a short time ago, he would have been stood down there at Bucky’s side, feeling awkward and wishing he didn’t have to tag along but prepared to go anyway if only because Bucky made such a production of wanting him to take part.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t know whether he likes the feeling that he’d rather be going to Stark’s party to be somewhat miserable and uncomfortable if only to know that he was there at Bucky’s request because Bucky wanted him to go, than stuck here all night with thoughts of how badly he’s messed up his oldest and best friendship.

 

 

   The door closes.

 

 

   His mother calls his name.

 

 

   He’s not sure what he’s expecting when he walks downstairs to see her, but it’s not for her to be wearing a sad expression, or for her to say,

 

 

   “Baby, you two need to make up.”

 

 

   “We’re not fighting,” Steve protests weakly, but in the face of his mother’s steady observation, he can’t pretend.

 

 

   “It’s my fault,” he insists,

 

 

   “Not his. I wanted to fix things – make them a little better – so I kind of lied to him, and I think the meeting went okay, but now he’s mad at me, and he _should_ be – I should have told him what we’d planned – ”

 

 

   “Planned? Meeting?” Mrs. Rogers interrupts, and when Steve nods miserably, she sighs.

 

 

   “I think you’d better come join me in the kitchen and tell me all about it,” she suggests, and although Steve has no real wish to go over the whole business of his duplicity again, he follows her into the kitchen and lets her sit him down with a hot cup of coffee in front of him, and half an hour later she knows everything.

 

 

   Well, everything except Sigyn’s connection to Loki and how that very connection is what made the experience so much more fraught and delicate, and how it’s also a large part of the reason why Steve still feels intolerably guilty even though – _perhaps because?_ – Loki doesn’t know and has in fact seemed quite generally positive judging by his missives in the days since.

 

 

   Steve has basically decided by now that this apparent improvement in Loki’s mood and willingness to open up and Steve’s inability to fully enjoy it and share in it with him due to the gnawing of his conscience is Steve’s punishment for having lied to Loki in the first place when he promised he wouldn’t.

 

 

   Perhaps this omission is why Mrs. Rogers levels a curious gaze at him and asks,

 

 

   “Honey, do you like this girl?”

 

 

   Only to Steve, whose reserves of passion are so preoccupied with exhausting themselves over the very existence of Loki in this world, the question can hold no connotations of anything beyond platonic admiration, so he doesn’t hesitate at all in replying,

 

 

   “Sure, she seems like a really great person,” until he catches up and realises what’s really being asked of him, and then he can’t get the,

 

 

   “I mean – I don’t like her like – she’s a good friend, I know her through the library – I don’t like her the way Bucky does!” out fast enough, and his mother nods.

 

 

   “I thought not,” she remarks easily, and then,

 

 

   “But I think you understand by now that Bucky more than just ‘likes’ _this_ girl,” as if this is common knowledge between she and Steve, and Steve frowns.

 

 

   “I don’t... Has he said something to you?” he asks, confused, and his mother serves him a very frank look.

 

 

   “The same thing he’s told you, I’ll bet,” she says with a definite measure of quiet reproach.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t say anything, not sure what his mother’s getting at, until she finally sighs and delivers,

 

 

   “Honey, Bucky’s in love with her. I know he may not have said it straight out, but you must have read that between the lines if he gave you the same story he gave me.”

 

 

   “What? That’s – I mean, yeah, he told me she was special and he explained why, but – _really?_ ” Steve asks, baffled by how his mother’s reached this conclusion,

 

 

   “He was just fixating on her,” he argues, because it’s true, no matter what importance Bucky has ascribed to Sigyn later, his obsession is rooted in idealisation and that’s not even close to being anything like actual love,

 

 

   “He can’t be in love with her; he doesn’t know the first thing about her!”

 

 

_“You don’t know anything about me,” Loki’s voice insists, hard and urgent and unwilling to accept any other possibility,_

_“Do you? **Not a thing.**_ _”_

 

 

   Steve recoils from the memory immediately, while Mrs. Rogers just shrugs in response to his statement.

 

 

   “He may not know a whole lot about who she is as a person, but he knows how she makes him feel, and sometimes that can be enough to inspire that emotion. Whether he’s in love with _her_ or the _idea_ of her doesn’t matter – either way, he’s decided she’s special and the line between those two things isn’t easy to distinguish at your age,” she says mildly.

 

 

   “That’s not true,” Steve insists immediately,

 

 

   “You should at least know something real about them – you should be able to _tell!_ ”

 

 

_“You can’t possibly know anything real about me. How could you?”_

_And Steve can’t, except he does and now he knows that he really, really shouldn’t._

_“Tell me. **Tell me!** ”_

 

 

   “That’s not always possible, sweetheart,” his mother replies kindly,

 

 

   “Not everyone is so in touch with how they really feel, especially not if it’s something they haven’t tried before, and I think you can at least see that Bucky’s affected by this girl in a way he hasn’t been affected by anyone else before now. It’s new, and it’s scary, and yes, in his case, it had some unfortunate consequences, but feelings aren’t invalid just because you can’t really explain why you’re having them or because they’re irrational. We’re not in control of how we feel or who affects us – it just happens, and then we deal with it as best we can.”

 

 

   “No,” Steve says firmly, shaking his head to clear the hollowed-out echoes of _‘No, Loki’_ from his mind,

 

 

   “You can’t just _decide_ you’re in love with someone because you think they’re – they’re interesting, or attractive – that’s not how it works.”

 

 

   It’s not. It can’t be. You can’t just develop a fascination for someone – an intensified crush – and call it ‘being in love’. It has to be based on something; there _has_ to be more to it than that. Steve believes this with a burning conviction – that loving someone isn’t something that just _happens_ , that there are reasons behind it, that it has to be built on and from something substantial.

 

 

   It can’t just spring forth out of nothing more than a glance and a tossing of hair that catches the light. You can trace back the moment where an interest was kindled to something like that, but it’s not enough to base anything more serious on, and love is a serious thing.

 

 

   It’s once you’ve grown to know someone, once you’ve shared something of yourself with them and they’ve shared something of themselves with you, that you can begin to truly love them, because otherwise, what is it that you’re claiming to love?

 

 

   Bright eyes and a wish, and a hope that the idea you have of who this person is _is_ the right one – and that that’s the right one for you?

 

 

   That’s not enough.

 

 

   “We don’t all have your certainty when it comes to these things, baby,” his mother tells him gently,

 

 

   “Bucky sure doesn’t – not yet – and until that certainty dawns on us, all we have to go on is how strong what we’re feeling is, and whether it’s something we know how to quantify. Of course what he did was wrong, and he realises that, but initially, he did the right thing in refusing to see her again, just like I told him he should, and that was hard for him, sweetheart – I don’t think he knew it would be that hard – and he did it anyway because he knew he had to. Giving up on something like that when it’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before and you feel like if you just give it a chance, it could grow into something amazing and change your life – that’s a very difficult thing to make yourself do, for any person. But Bucky did it, and it _was_ the right thing to do.”

 

 

   “...and then I spoiled it,” Steve finishes numbly, head suddenly full of everything he thought about Bucky during the incident at the library – how angry Steve was, and how he knew he’d blame Bucky forever if what he’d done ruined everything Steve had worked to build between he and Loki – and then he thinks of how he’s felt these last few days, how he’s worried that what he tried to do for Bucky and Sigyn might actually be the thing that leads Loki to break things off entirely once he finds out, because Steve has every faith that Loki _will_ find out eventually and it seems like the longer it takes the worse the lie is, the more awful this omission of truth seems to be –

 

 

   and then Steve thinks of how Bucky shut him down, when he said he wanted to help, that there had to be something that could be done about he and Sigyn, and how pained he looked when he insisted he couldn’t see her again, and it’s like seeing it in a new light.

 

 

_“Loki, I’m sorry. I didn’t think – I never meant to screw up this way, I never meant this to happen... I know it’s my fault but – do you want me to leave?”_

 

 

   Bucky didn’t even have what Steve had – that it was his own fault isn’t the issue – and he didn’t have half the certainty Steve has had for a long time now, that this person he’s discovered is important, and could be so much more important if only the option was explored, and yet Bucky took a step back and cut the ties and refused to pursue it any further because he eventually accepted that it was the right thing to do, even though it hurt.

 

 

   _“I want you to be as happy as you can be.”_

 

 

   And it must have hurt, Steve realises, it must have hurt badly, to feel like you’ve barely begun to understand all the ways in which this significant individual could have a bearing on your life and who you become in the end, only to have to deny yourself the opportunity to find out because you’ve made a mistake and you don’t deserve it anymore – can’t defend the desire not to let go because your persistent belief that there’s something very right about this other person’s presence in your life is hurting that person the longer you hang on to it and make it known to them.

 

 

   _“I really want for you not to hate me...”_

 

 

   Bucky let go despite what he wanted, so as not to run the risk of hurting Sigyn any further, and then when Steve offered to try and help, he stuck to that decision.

 

 

   How cruel it must have seemed, then, when Steve tricked him into seeing her after all.

 

 

   Almost as cruel as the way Steve sat a few metres away, having to deny himself something – _someone_ – he’d wanted for ages because he couldn’t leave.

 

 

   _“Do you... Do you like me at all, anymore? Even just a little?”_

 

 

   Maybe more, in fact. Is it worse to know you actually _have_ something to lose, or worse to have it rubbed in your face that you lost something you could only guess the full potential of due to your own actions?

 

 

   Steve felt that, the last time Loki kissed him. The last time Loki found out Steve had lied to him.

 

 

   _“If you’re doing this to punish me...”_

 

 

   All the pain of losing – or thinking he’d lost – something that he’d begun to believe and hope could be so much more than it already was.

 

 

_“I want you to be happy. But... I’ll take whatever you can give me.”_

_Kisses that hurt because they might be – probably **will** be – the last._

_Wanting so very much, and the pure truth of being wanted in return, only by someone who seems to wish they felt differently so they could be spared everything that follows it._

_The devastating knowledge that he’d settle for anything as long as he isn’t asked to **let go** , and how unavoidable the shame attached to that is. How it aches to realise that he is not in control of these emotions and that if what he has done cannot be forgiven, he will promise just about anything to be allowed an opportunity to redeem himself even despite there being so little chance of success as to render his prospects hopeless..._

 

 

   “You didn’t spoil anything,” his mother insists softly,

 

 

   “But it wasn’t easy for Bucky to stick to his guns and choose not to have anything to do with her again, and when you tricked him into it anyway... Well.”

 

 

   She spreads her hands as if to say, ‘there you have it’, and then adds, carefully,

 

 

   “You said they talked?”

 

 

   Steve can feel himself nodding, but he doesn’t feel connected to it. He’s consumed with the idea of what he’s done to Bucky – how he’s inadvertently made things much worse, much harder, for one of the people he was trying to help – and at the same time, he wants nothing more than to tell Loki everything.

 

 

   Before the lie eats away at the very foundations of what they finally seem to have a real chance at building here.

 

 

   “I think he told her everything he’d told me already,” he informs his mother, and she nods.

 

 

   “I think so. And she wasn’t mad at him?”

 

 

   “She said... She told me he wasn’t so bad. Then she left,” Steve replies simply.

 

 

   “Well honey, you know what you have to do,” Mrs. Rogers tells him,

 

 

   “You need to go and find Bucky and tell him you’re sorry for what you did and that you should have told him so he could make a decision for himself either way. He might not forgive you straight off the bat, but at least he’ll know you understand why it was hard for him, and that you were trying to put things a little righter than they were before.”

 

 

   “He won’t talk to me,” Steve says heavily, certain of the matter,

 

 

   “He’s been ignoring me since it happened. He just pretends that we’re okay around other people – I don’t think he’ll hear me out if I try and tell him I’m sorry.”

 

 

   His mother just smiles and reaches over, squeezing his hand where it lies listlessly on the table in front of him.

 

 

   “He’ll hear you. He might not tell you, but he’ll hear you, and he needs to hear you soon before this has a real chance to burrow in or make him do something silly. The two of you will be alright, I promise. Just tell him how it is, and give it a little time, and you’ll see,” she says encouragingly.

 

 

   “Mom... I can’t just march up to him like that,” Steve protests, and his mother raises an eyebrow.

 

 

   “Why not? You know where he is. Pull him aside and tell him, and then leave him to sort it all through for himself. It’s better to get it done as soon as possible, honey, trust me,” she replies, expectant, and Steve knows she’s not going to accept his reasons for waiting as valid excuses.

 

 

   “I guess... I’ll find him and tell him, but if it doesn’t work...”

 

 

   “It’ll work. Just make sure he knows you were trying to help. He won’t believe you wanted to _hurt_ him, he knows better than that,” Steve’s mother says sensibly, and Steve frowns.

 

 

   “I really didn’t,” he says quietly,

 

 

   “I just... I thought if I gave them both a chance to have a little closure, it’d be better for everyone.”

 

 

   “Everyone?” his mother asks calmly, and Steve hesitates. He is in no way ready to reveal that there is another person’s happiness hanging in the balance, or what it will mean to him if he fails on that count again.

 

 

   “Well... Bucky and her. And me, a little bit. They were both angry and unhappy and I just – I wanted to help. I thought it’d help,” he says sincerely, and his mother nods knowingly.

 

 

   “There you go, then. Just tell Bucky that. After he’s simmered down, he’ll understand,” she says, so reasonable that Steve can almost believe that it’ll be that easy, and then she smiles and asks,

 

 

   “Do you want a lift over there?”

 

 

   Suddenly, Steve sees everything that needs to happen so clearly that he can’t believe he didn’t before, and he nods before he can second-guess himself and says,

 

 

   “Could you?” even as he fingers the outline of his phone in his pocket.

 

 

   His mother’s smile is proud and encouraging, and it fortifies Steve to the point where they’re actually pulling up on the road where Stark’s house is situated before the looming darkness of doubt settles in Steve’s chest anew and constricts his breathing.

 

 

   Mrs. Rogers parks a few doors down and leans over, placing a soothing hand on Steve’s arm, and asks,

 

 

   “Do you want me to wait?” and Steve shakes his head, because no, that won’t be necessary.

 

 

   “I’ll find my way home,” he assures her, and because he has never given her cause to doubt him before, this satisfies her.

 

 

   It’s just one lie after another, lately.

 

 

   Or rather, _omission of truth_ , not that calling it that makes the guilt any less.

 

 

   “Okay, baby, if you’re sure. Call me if you change your mind,” she instructs, and Steve nods, swallows, kisses his mother on the cheek, and gets out of the car.

 

 

   He hears her pull away behind him, but he’s not actively paying attention to it.

 

 

   All his focus is on the message his trembling fingers are tapping into his phone, and once he’s sent it, it takes every ounce of his resolve to force himself to make his way along the pavement towards Stark’s house.

 

 

   It’s a large affair, and in typical Anthony Stark tradition there are so many people milling about inside and out that the addition of one more person goes completely unnoticed.

 

 

   Steve’s been here before, always, always at Bucky’s side, sometimes even at functions like this – although this time he has to admit that Stark has outdone himself, both on the horrendous choice of music blasting from open windows and doors and also on the sheer number of guests, some of whom Steve is sure probably weren’t invited by the host himself but have ended up here all the same – and it’s a nice place, but even in a big house like this there’s a finite amount of space and Steve’s fairly certain property damage is on the cards for tonight if the legacy of past revels is any indication.

 

 

   Steve hasn’t, however, been anywhere like this – as in, a party of any sort – since before Loki, which to Steve has become more like _Before Loki_.

 

 

   Thinking of Loki – about the last party Steve was at specifically – is both unhelpful and distressing right now, but he finds he can’t help it, and as he draws nearer to the house and seeks the entrance, a painful apprehension quite unlike that which he feels already at the prospect of what he’s here to do settles in his stomach.

 

 

   It’s easy to duck past a gaggle of unsteadily-swaying girls and in through the front door, and pressing through the people in the hall is only difficult because there are so many of them, and none willing to give way to anything except the obnoxious beat and the contagious sway of the bodies around them.

 

 

   Loki’s not here – can’t be here for the sake of Steve’s sanity – and if he _were_ , slipping through throngs of undulating strangers and anchored to Steve by a perfect, pale hand curling around Steve’s own damp, shaking, utterly unworthy appendage, Steve wouldn’t have the first idea what to say to him.

 

 

   _‘I can’t come with you wherever it is you want me to go because I have to find Bucky and apologise to him for conspiring with Sigyn so she could meet him and they could talk it out, which is probably the first you’re hearing of this,’_ somehow just doesn’t sound like it would work in that particular situation.

 

 

   There’s also the minor yet undeniable fact that if Loki were here, pulling Steve off to parts unknown but likely to be secluded and with a lockable door – and that’s not self-flattery, it’s just what Steve expects would transpire based on sound and repetitive analysis of their few actual encounters and the patterns of same – Steve wouldn’t be able to resist him and he certainly wouldn’t have the courage to tell him why Steve’s actually here right now or why he couldn’t meet Loki that day.

 

 

   No, Loki’s not here, but Bucky must be, somewhere in this heaving mass of inebriated youths and barely-clad people whom Steve has never seen before in his life, and Steve needs to find him, say his piece, and then get out as quickly as possible.

 

 

   Still, every glint of pale flesh he sees sets his heart racing and every sweep of dark hair makes his breath sting in his throat even as his brain catalogues the lack of luminosity that Steve recalls from skin so softly white that it has to be felt to be understood and the absence of that distinctive sheen and cut of strands Steve can practically still feel between his fingers if he lets himself dwell on that aching want for just long enough.

 

 

   _Loki is **not** here_ , Steve tells himself, over and over, and he seems correct so far. He’s also right in that Bucky _is_ here, in a corner of the oversized kitchen that looks as though it was lifted directly from a catalogue and has never been used for actual cooking, against a cabinet with a very wobbly blonde whom Steve can’t say with any real certainty that he recognises.

 

 

   That is, he doesn’t recognise her as an individual with a name – instead he recognises parts of her overall composition as vaguely familiar, as though he’s seen her before or ought to be able to identify to what extent he’s acquainted with her, however distantly.

 

 

   For a brief moment he thinks it may simply be that he is focusing on certain of her characteristics because she’s in a rather intimate clinch with Bucky and it’s both awkward and embarrassing to have walked in on – not that he hasn’t seen worse, even on the way in here, but this is his best friend whom he’s known since they were both in onesie-pyjamas and that adds to the awkwardness in a big way – but then he realises that in actual fact he’s registering specific similarities in her to someone else he knows far better, and the knot in his stomach becomes icy and leaden.

 

 

   Steve is actually almost shocked that there’s any reaction to his somewhat choked,

 

 

   “Er – Bucky?” but either he’s got a clearer voice than he’s previously considered himself to have, or Bucky’s not so invested in the task at hand as to be unreachable.

 

 

   Either way he detaches himself and meets Steve’s eyes with a clouded, oddly defiant look which renders the overblown smile he pairs it with and cheery,

 

 

   “Steve! Didn’t think you’d make it!” all the more unpleasant to behold.

 

 

   “Yeah, I uh – I need to talk to you,” Steve replies, gaze flickering from the safety of the cupboard to Bucky’s coldly pleased eyes and that cuttingly false grin.

 

 

   “Sure, great, go ahead,” he prompts,

 

 

   “Let me have it.”

 

 

   The obvious challenge in that doesn’t make this any less uncomfortable for Steve, who nevertheless attempts,

 

 

   “Uh – in private?”

 

 

   “It’s a _party_ , Steve,” Bucky laughs, and it’s heavy with all the unspoken _you’re-so-naïve_ and _why-can’t-you-ever-relax_ and _you-don’t-belong-here_ that’s ever passed silently between them, expression in this form made possible with the sponsorship of the way Steve lied to Bucky and everything he’s imbibed tonight so far.

 

 

   “Besides,” he adds, so lightly you’d think it wasn’t barbed at all,

 

 

   “Sarah – it’s Sarah, right? – won’t mind.”

 

 

   Judging by the look on the girl’s face, Steve rather thinks she would if she were even a little less drunk, but he doesn’t say so. He also doesn’t say that he suspects some part of her, however inebriated she may be, probably very much _does_ mind that the boy she was just kissing can’t even pretend to care enough to remember her name for the hour tops it must have taken for the two of them to get to this stage if Steve is any kind of expert on Bucky’s usual rates.

 

 

   “No, I – I really need to talk to you. It’s important,” he tries, but Bucky’s already casually adjusted the nameless young lady on his arm and is saying,

 

 

   “Steve’s my oldest friend – great guy, always looking out for me. So, what’s the problem, Stevie? You’ve never had trouble telling me what’s on your mind before.”

 

 

   It’s childish and petty, throwing that in his face like this, and Steve knows he shouldn’t rise to it, but he also knows that Bucky’s doing it purposely to upset him and put him off – make him guilty enough that he’ll leave so Bucky doesn’t have to deal with this – and that’s exactly why Steve can’t go until he’s said what he came here to say.

 

 

   If Bucky thinks Steve is going to give up and just leave him to his poor life choices and this almost spiteful wallowing in the rift between them, he’s got _several_ other things coming.

 

 

   There’s nothing so broken that you can’t at least _try_ to fix it, and Steve honestly believes that he owes the attempt to both himself and Bucky at this point. It doesn’t matter that Bucky may disagree – it’s not solely his decision to make, and the last time he was allowed to stew in something that had upset him, it all went horribly awry.

 

 

   “Fine. I’m sorry for what I did – it was wrong of me and I never should have sprung it on you like that. I understand why you’re mad at me, and even though I acted out of the best intentions, I know it hurt you and I’m sorry for putting you through that. I hope you’ll forgive me,” Steve says, as seriously and firmly as he can, doing his level best to ignore the girl partially splayed over Bucky’s chest fiddling with the hem of a sleeve and just focus on the conflicting emotions playing out in his best friend’s eyes.

 

 

   “Forgive you? I’m not even mad at you!” Bucky replies, quick-fire and bravado-laced, shaky with attempted carelessness barely obscuring a plea for Steve to leave it at that.

 

 

   “Really?” Steve asks, flatly and without faith, because it’s the least convincing thing Bucky’s ever said to him, and Steve wasn’t the one who chose to do this here in front of someone completely outside the situation.

 

 

   “ _Yes_ , really. It was stupid – I don’t even care anymore.”

 

 

   _Then what are you doing here with a girl who’ll look so much like **her** in the dark that you won’t need to be too drunk to see straight not to mind the difference?_

 

 

   Steve can’t answer that question – not because he’s not aware of what Bucky’s motivation is, but because it’s deeply worrying and upsetting to consider it in depth. It’s not Steve’s place to judge the coping mechanisms of others, even if he does disapprove and fear that they’ll only make things worse in the long run.

 

 

   There’s nothing Steve can tell Bucky that will speed the healing process at this stage, and even if Steve were to tell him that he honestly does understand how rough this has been on Bucky it’ll only create confusion or lead to a conversation that Steve is in no way ready for.

 

 

   All Steve can do for Bucky now is let him make his own choices – however terrible they may be – and support him if he comes to Steve for help dealing with the consequences. Steve can at least trust in the fact that Bucky now understands that his actions _have_ consequences, and not just for himself but for the people around him as well.

 

 

   If Bucky really has been feeling that way Steve’s mother says he has, even if the basis for that isn’t something Steve feels able to credit, then there is no consequence of what he’s obviously planning to do here tonight that can be worse than what he has already done.

 

 

   It is with this in mind that Steve simply says,

 

 

   “Okay. Just wanted to let you know. I’ll see you later.”

 

 

   He’s not particularly keen on hanging about to witness Bucky’s lack of a response or the distasteful way he’s using another person to work through some of his current hang-ups, but he’s surprised by the somewhat heavy,

 

 

   “Yeah, I’ll see you,” that hits him squarely in the back after he’s turned away to leave.

 

 

   It lessens the pang of disappointment he feels in there being nothing Steve can do to prevent Bucky from indulging in what he clearly came here for, but at least Steve can comfort himself a little further in the knowledge that he’s accomplished his primary goal for the evening as he goes back the way he entered.

 

 

   There’s just one more thing left to do tonight, and Steve is so preoccupied with the idea of it that he doesn’t notice that he’s taking a wrong turn as he ducks around a group of strangers clogging the area around a dresser and what might be a doorway if he could see past or over them, but suddenly he’s very clearly at the back of the house pushing his way through a sitting room which opens up into the garden, rather than the front, and the unplanned change in direction throws him briefly.

 

 

   Enough that he dodges around six gyrating young ladies out of the French doors, slips behind a bush, skirts the edge of a flowerbed, and ends up among a tastefully landscaped group of trees in a corner when he hears what he thinks might be Tony Stark’s laugh in the midst of the gathering. If there’s one person Steve does not want to see, it’s _him_.

 

 

   Steve’s not really meant to be here tonight and in any case he dislikes Stark most of the time for his blustering and egotism and need to be the centre of attention and an object of fascination to all. Given that this tendency grows proportionately with the size of the audience Stark has available to him, and his propensity for choosing Steve to pick on when he’s in the mood to tell jokes that make himself look good at the expense of others, there is very good reason for Steve to avoid him.

 

 

   The altered course and slight distance now put between Steve and the house means it’s a little quieter here, and since the night is relatively young still, no one seems to have hit on dragging anyone else to this particular hidey-hole yet, all still dancing and drinking under the fairy lights strung up over the terrace or milling about the house looking for their friends.

 

 

   Except the person whom Steve almost falls right over as he backs himself a little further into the shadows, intending to just take a moment to himself and hope the fresh air will ease some of the anxiety tightening his chest.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t fall, but he does stumble, and he does this right into the steadying arm of someone whose hair is just right, whose skin is glowing just exactly as it should with the moon out, but whose eyes are lit with an anger that causes all the buoyant joy of recognition to seize in Steve’s throat and cripple his voice.

 

 

  


	14. Breach

 

 

 

   “ _I know_ ,” Loki says condemningly, recoiling and leaving Steve to reel, suddenly appearing so harsh and unforgiving that he is beautiful in a way that Steve thinks he’s a fool for ever having believed he could capture but still can’t help but admire.

 

 

   Moonlight suits Loki just as well as everything else does, and it makes the point of contact that existed between them only seconds ago feel fittingly frozen, a remaining indentation in the fabric covering Steve’s forearm the only evidence that Loki touched him at all apart from the heavy leadenness of the limb which hasn’t quite the courage to reach out again.

 

 

   The way Loki looks right now, the half-lit angles of his face and dead gleam of his eyes would splinter Steve if he tried to resist them or soften them ever so slightly.

 

 

   The words too are final, so deliberately cold, that it almost hides the fragile disappointment and hurt, but those are what open Steve’s mouth when the rest of him seems rendered useless and force out,

 

 

   “I was coming to tell you – I was going to tell you tonight, that’s why I had to see you – I wanted to tell you in person, so I could explain – ”

 

 

   “Explain that you’re incapable of resisting the compulsion to conspire with Sigyn in lying to me?” Loki interrupts, exaggeratedly dismissive as if the effort he needs to put into making it appear that this is nothing to him even to prove a point is costing him something Steve can’t begin to quantify,

 

 

   “Well, we knew that already, didn’t we? I hardly think I should be surprised at this point.”

 

 

   “That isn’t fair,” Steve counters immediately, unwilling to allow Loki to relate this back to last time – this _isn’t_ like that, it’s not, and it won’t be either; Steve won’t let it be – shoring it up with,

 

 

   “This was her business and her decision. She came to me and asked for my help. She didn’t want you to know right away because she didn’t want to worry you. I promised her I’d keep it from you until she was ready to tell you herself, and you have _no_ idea what that did to me, how hard it was for me to agree not to say anything...”

 

 

   He means it to be a sincere but strong declaration of his innocence, of how his actions weren’t wrong because his intentions were pure and he made a promise to Sigyn to keep her private concerns private, but instead all it does is dredge up the memory of sweating bullets while planning it with her via text, of facing Dr. Erskine’s solemn, well-meaning gaze in the familiar office where discomfort and self-loathing is the norm for Steve more than anywhere else but how awful it was magnified through the lens of what he was waiting to do to his best friend, and to Loki by not telling him about what _his_ best friend was going to do.

 

 

   He stands there reliving every anxious, fraught second and every jolt of nervous, guilty apprehension his phone’s vibrations shocked through him, and he hates it and yet wishes he could show Loki that he’s been punishing himself for doing this every step of the way so that maybe, _maybe_ Loki won’t feel the need to heap his own brand of censure over Steve as well.

 

 

   Steve isn’t so sure that approach would work even if he could take a breath deep enough to implement it.

 

 

   “ _Her_ business? It would be _her_ business if she was the only affected party – if you _knew_ how afraid she was, how she jumped at every little shadow after your _friend_ called her – she wouldn’t let me in when I got back because she was so terrified of coming to the door to unhook the chain. I had to stand in the hall and plead with her, and even then she was so distraught she could barely speak!” Loki replies quickly, voice tight and controlled,

 

 

   “ _I_ had to disconnect the phone and change all her numbers. _I_ had to talk her out of relocating to another apartment and giving up her job. _I_ had to convince her that her bedroom door didn’t need a fourth lock because I’d have had to leave her to fetch one, and she was too upset to let me go anywhere without her _or_ come with me! For _days_ this went on – the only moments I had to myself were when she was in the bathroom, and she couldn’t bear to be on her own even as long as it took either of us to bathe!”

 

 

   The implication of this makes Steve blink, unable to quite imagine how that would work, but Loki goes on, tone never gaining any additional volume, just a good measure of bitterness and anger.

 

 

   “And of _course_ I didn’t mind taking care of her – it’s not her fault, she was frightened and I have always and will always take care of her when she needs me – but I hated it, that someone she doesn’t even know could do this to her, to the woman she’s become after everything we went through, and if I could have found a way to inflict just a little of the fear she felt upon your idiot friend without upsetting her any further, I would have done it and I wouldn’t have regretted a _moment_ – ”

 

 

   Loki pauses to breathe, to collect himself, but his voice is sharper than before for all it’s quieter when he speaks again, and _Steve_ doesn’t know how to collect all the pieces of Loki he’s being shown or how to make them hurt less – make Loki hurt _less_ , for once.

 

 

   “It’s _not_ just _her_ business,” Loki insists,

 

 

   “It isn’t – not when it affects us both – not when she makes you _lie_ to me for her after she _promised_ – ”

 

 

   His mouth snaps shut, lips a thin, fretful line, and he twists away from Steve as if fighting to contain whatever poison is festering in the wound that is Sigyn’s latest betrayal.

 

 

   Steve can’t say whether he’s glad Loki is capable of making even that token effort at controlling his emotions or whether he’d prefer Loki to just let it all out in one go so they can try and sort through the wreckage without having to fear broken things in the murk causing further damage to both of them.

 

 

   “Loki...” Steve begins, but because he doesn’t know how to go on, all he says is,

 

 

   “I just wanted to help.”

 

 

   “ _Help?_ ” Loki demands icily, incredulously, swinging round to face Steve in a jaggedly fluid motion and stepping past the shield of personal space, forcing Steve back a little so they’re not drawing the same breath,

 

 

   “How could you possibly help? You don’t understand the first thing about us! Pity and a soft heart _aren’t enough_ – what you did could have destroyed her, you had _no_ way of knowing how she would react even if she _was_ the one who asked you to do it – and don’t pretend you weren’t in any way motivated by misplaced guilt and sympathy for your mindless _fool_ of a friend!”

 

 

   It’s not the aggression or the blame in Loki that shocks and cuts into Steve so acutely.

 

 

   It’s not even the implication that Steve could have stopped Sigyn from doing precisely what she wants, as if she isn’t capable of making things happen on her own, or that any consequences to her that might have arisen from that would be solely Steve’s fault.

 

 

   What knocks Steve sideways as surely as if Loki had just gone ahead and shoved him to the ground is the accusation that Steve’s reasons for doing this were primarily selfish, and what _hurts_ is the backhanded suggestion that Loki believes this because there is no way for Steve to be anything but shallowly invested in Loki and Sigyn beyond his own interests and that Loki isn’t surprised to be proven right in that assumption.

 

 

   It hurts that Loki is close enough that Steve could reach both arms around his waist and clasp his own wrists easily, and all Steve can see in Loki’s eyes is disappointment and self-reproach.

 

 

   Loki is as angry with himself for having believed better of Steve as he is with Steve for having inadvertently misled him as to the quality of his character.

 

 

   The one thing that makes Steve worthwhile to others, and certainly that which seems to be most important in Steve to Loki, has been compromised and made to look a lie.

 

 

   Steve can’t let Loki think it really is.

 

 

   “ _That_ ,” he says, very firmly,

 

 

   “Is not true – ”

 

 

   Loki’s interjecting little sound of disgusted disbelief is almost enough to throw Steve off course, but he employs every ounce of stubbornness he owns in continuing,

 

 

   “ – and I don’t think you really believe it is, either.”

 

 

   “Don’t presume to tell me what I think,” Loki snaps as if insulted,

 

 

   “Especially not when your reasoning was as obvious as that.”

 

 

   “Well it can’t have been, then, because however sorry I felt for Bucky after he’d told me everything and admitted what a complete ass he’d been, I _never_ would have inflicted him on Sigyn if she hadn’t asked me to set up a meeting. I might have _wanted_ to do something to mend bridges because that’s just who I am and I’m not going to apologise for that, but I never would have gone ahead with it in a million years if she hadn’t asked, and I don’t know what she told you but I took a _lot_ of convincing before I agreed to help and it turned out to be the worst thing I could have done for everyone _but_ her. She is literally the only one who came away from that meeting _not_ totally crushed!” Steve counters, breathing hard towards the end as he tries to argue his case without in any way making it sound as if he’s blaming her or increasingly feels the need to excuse himself and cry somewhere private over how awfully this is going.

 

 

   “It doesn’t _matter_ that it didn’t have an overtly negative impact on her,” Loki reiterates,

 

 

   “What matters is that it very well _could_ have and that you had no right to go behind my back and ignore that possibility! I don’t care what she said to convince you – you never should have given in!”

 

 

   “She’s an _adult_ , Loki – if she’d wanted to make it happen enough she’d eventually have just done it without me anyway, and wouldn’t you prefer that there was someone else there that you at least don’t hate to keep an eye on her and make sure she was okay after?” Steve asks, aware that he’s clutching at every straw left to him and just hoping one of them will turn out to be at least slightly useful.

 

 

   “So you just went along with her ridiculous, potentially detrimental plans on the off chance that if you didn’t she’d just find another way?” Loki demands as if this is the most preposterous thing he’s ever heard in his life.

 

 

   Steve can’t say he really appreciates that, but at the same time he will admit that it’s not the greatest argument he could have put forward.

 

 

   There’s a reason he’s never considered a career in the law.

 

 

   “No, that’s – that’s not what I – ” he struggles, before finally just rubbing both hands over his face roughly and starting over with,

 

 

   “Look, that’s not what I mean, okay? What I mean is you’re _wrong_. About why I did it.”

 

 

   It’s part of what Steve’s been desperate to come clean about since the beginning of this bloody mess, and that’s partly why he’s so quick to go on and say,

 

 

   “ _No one_ was angrier with Bucky about what happened than me. I don’t think I could explain how angry I was if I tried – the way he acted with her was one thing but then when I saw the way you – ”

 

 

_no, no, Steve can’t talk about that, not now, that’s not pertinent, **except it is** , it **really** is, but that doesn’t mean it has any place **here** in what he’s trying to say right now – _

 

   “Look, I had no idea what he was doing – you think if I had I would have let that go on? When it happened and it all came out afterwards, everything he’d done – _God_ , I was so angry, just completely shocked and disgusted and I made damn sure he knew that because being my best friend all our lives doesn’t give you a free pass to – to _stalk_ another human being like that, okay, in fact it makes it worse because you think you know someone and then they turn around and admit to doing something so _wrong_ – ”

 

 

   _that’s not relevant either, that’s not at all what Steve needs to emphasise and if he does it’ll just actually make him cry and that’s not an option but even talking about it is awful –_

 

   “So yes, I was angry and I didn’t think I’d ever forgive him for what he’d done and I told him, too, and okay, after I made him explain everything and tell me exactly why he did it, I felt bad for him – I can’t help it that when something’s making my friends _that_ miserable all I want to do is help – and yeah, I felt a little guilty for not realising how bad things were and what he was going through, but that doesn’t mean I forgave him right away or couldn’t still see that what he’d done was horrible and unacceptable!”

 

 

   Steve can see that he’s not getting through to Loki properly, that the edge of bitter mistrust isn’t lessening in the slightest, and it makes him a little desperate.

 

 

   Enough to blurt out,

 

 

   “He didn’t even want to see her – well, he did – but he knew it was a bad idea when we talked about it and he refused to! He knew what he’d done was inexcusable and he didn’t want to put himself in that position again because it wasn’t fair to her!”

 

 

   “You _talked_ about it?” Loki demands incredulously, and Steve flinches, eyes wide and hands up in defence.

 

 

   “ _No_ – not like that we didn’t – it was the day after when he told me everything and we – we agreed that he shouldn’t see her again, ever, and that’s when he said he totally refused to anyway because he knew he couldn’t do that to her!”

 

 

   “So you _did_ talk about it,” Loki hisses,

 

 

   “And it’s practically written all over you that _you_ brought it up!”

 

 

   **_How did he know?_**

****

****

**_This is a disaster!_ **

 

 

   “I did not bring it up!” Steve protests, praying to God that Loki can’t actually see that that’s almost exactly what happened.

 

 

   “But that’s not what I’m trying to tell you – he told me point-blank he knew he couldn’t ever see her again whether he wanted to or not because it wouldn’t be fair to her and she deserved better, and when she got in touch with me and told me she wanted me to set up a meeting so she could settle this whole thing, that’s only a _tiny_ part of why I couldn’t agree right away – mostly I couldn’t agree because she told me _you_ couldn’t know about it and I knew – I _knew_ you’d hate me for it if you found out and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it quiet and that’s why I needed to tell you – why I was going to tell you tonight because this has been _killing_ me ever since she first texted me!”

 

 

   Loki says nothing, lips tightly sealed, so Steve flaps a frantic hand and expels,

 

 

   “I felt guilty about not realising what was going on with my best friend all that time, I felt guilty for not being able to stop it before Sigyn got hurt, I felt guilty for lying to my best friend to get him to go to that stupid meeting because I knew if I told him he’d refuse to go and Sigyn really wanted it – and he still hates me for it, by the way, _that’s why I came here_ , to try and find him so I could apologise somewhere he can’t just walk away and ignore me – and all of this has been eating away at me this whole time, but mostly – ”

 

 

   Steve has to swallow a sob before he can manage,

 

 

   “Mostly what’s been keeping me up at night and making me feel like the worst person in the world is keeping this from you when I promised I wouldn’t lie to you ever again, and I haven’t been able to once just make that go away by telling myself that I did it for Sigyn or that my intentions justify anything I did. That’s been the worst part. I may not have _lied_ to you, and maybe in time Bucky will forgive me, and I know Sigyn got out of this what she wanted and doesn’t feel so bad about it anymore so that’s some consolation but I – ”

 

 

   The next sob won’t let itself be swallowed.

 

 

   “I wasn’t honest with you and I knew from the off that’d hurt you and make you angry and I have been punishing myself all this time not being able to think about anything except how _I should have told you_ the minute she wrote to me about wanting me to help her and I _didn’t_...”

 

 

   It’s too hard to breathe and talk at the same time, now, but if Steve could, he’d curse himself not just for being too weak to even manage this without buckling under somehow but for mismanaging this situation so pathetically that he is practically _crying_ in front of perhaps the one person he never ever wants to see that, and after what he’s knowingly put Loki through he’s got no right to be so torn up, but –

 

 

   “ _I was **frightened**_ ,” Loki admits, and the way he says it is like dousing Steve in cold water, like waking up suddenly, and it’s a distance from his own emotions that he couldn’t have achieved any other way but Steve doesn’t think this was by design – that Loki wanted to say any such thing –

 

 

   “If – if you could have seen her,” Loki shudders, covering his face and taking a deep breath while Steve blinks away the stinging of his lungs and watches him carefully, the tightness suspended across Loki’s brow as though he’s pulling this out of himself with both hands clawed in an offer he wasn’t prepared to make for no reason he can discern, and Steve knows without needing to be told that underneath Loki’s anger and disappointment is just a deep, weary _hurt_.

 

 

   “She’d never let on,” Loki tells him quietly, wretched and shadowed but gleaming around the edges like he’s wearing a trembling halo,

 

 

   “She’d never admit how badly it affected her – how much she needed me. You can’t imagine, because you don’t know her and she would never tell you. She rallies well, these days, once she’s past the worst of it, but she has fought _so hard_ for that ability. I won’t let anyone take that from her, and I won’t let her put herself in a position where it might happen.”

 

 

   “I didn’t know,” Steve acknowledges, eager to be on the same page in even the smallest way when the tension in Loki’s shoulders and the upset on his face is all too familiar and Steve wishes he could pretend that it wasn’t because this is what he’s been fearing,

 

 

   “But she made me promise – ”

 

 

   “She made you promise and she justified it by claiming that it was _for **my** own good_ – to _protect_ me,” Loki cuts across,

 

 

   “She’ll have told you it was because she loves me and didn’t want to worry me, I don’t doubt that, and you’ll have believed her, as well you might, because it’s true – ”

 

 

   If Steve didn’t know better he’d think Loki despised the very integrity of Sigyn’s love for him, but of course that isn’t right, that isn’t what this is about –

 

 

   “But she didn’t want me to know so that I couldn’t stop her from doing something that could easily have set back her recovery by several months,” Loki finishes, and it breaks over Steve like a great wave of tender, cherished concern, and Steve understands so fully for a moment, staring into Loki’s narrowed, anguished eyes, that he can’t respond.

 

 

   It’s as well he doesn’t, because Loki turns his face away, arms tightly folded around himself and says,

 

 

   “If I don’t know what’s wrong, then I can’t help.”

 

 

   He doesn’t need to say anything else. Steve hears it just as well as if he had.

 

 

   ‘ _I’m meant to protect her the way she does me – I can’t do that if she lies_ ,’ aching and sad and heavy with guilty reproach.

 

 

   ‘ _I can’t be well if she isn’t and I can’t help her be well if she won’t tell me why she isn’t,_ ’ dark and loaded with dysfunction and dependence and such love.

 

 

   “All I want is for her to be safe and happy, and that is never going to be a constant enough state if she insists on foolish, unnecessary risks to her own sense of security. If she isn’t capable of recognising that then she isn’t capable of managing any of it alone,” Loki insists harshly.

 

 

   “But...” Steve begins, and then can’t go on, because what he wants to say is ‘ _she’s old enough to make those choices for herself_ ,’ and somehow that seems too much like Steve is dismissing Loki’s well-founded fears for her well-being and supporting Sigyn’s own apparent attitude that _Loki_ is the one who needs to be kept in the dark for his own good as though he’s too fragile to administer his own life.

 

 

   “She may be an adult, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t still eminently capable of making completely stupid life decisions which sometimes are better filtered through someone else who can provide a more reasonable perspective, and in her case _I_ am that person,” Loki says heavily, the weight of Sigyn’s potential happiness clear in every syllable,

 

 

   “The fact that she is for me as well is overridden when the consequences of her actions have the potential to be far worse for her than me. _I_ am the one who ends up having to take responsibility for the outcome of those stupid decisions either way, and while I’d never complain about taking care of her when she needs it, I resent having to when whatever’s caused her upset could have been easily avoided if only she’d _told_ me what she was planning and thinking. Do you understand?”

 

 

   Loki’s eyes are as piercing as ever even awash with sadness, and Steve thinks he _can_ understand, at least a little bit.

 

 

   “Our relationship works because it is mainly based on honesty and full disclosure. I am all she has. She can’t be allowed to ignore that in some misguided attempt at protecting me when whatever consequences that might have will only affect us both far more when I eventually find out anyway, because I _always_ do, and she _certainly_ can’t be allowed to drag _you_ into that. I can see why you’d be tempted to do it, but it isn’t what’s best for her in the long run and you are not nor will you ever be in a position to judge that because you will never know her like I do,” Loki promises, although it sounds more like a plea, and Steve dearly wishes he knew some way to protest this that wouldn’t sound utterly deluded.

 

 

   Of course Loki knows Sigyn best.

 

 

   Of course he’s in a far better position to estimate what any given situation will mean for her in every way – that can’t come into question and it would be ludicrous for Steve to insist that he could ever have some insight or opinion on the matter that could come before or be more accurate than Loki’s.

 

 

   “Making you promise to keep things from me that I will only inevitably end up finding out about anyway was wrong of her, but you have to see why I question your justification for doing it,” Loki says wearily, like he’s fatigued to the point of outright exhaustion by the amount of distrust and deceit in all this, and Steve bites his lip hard before replying,

 

 

   “... I wanted to help her. And part of me wanted to see if what she had planned couldn’t maybe help Bucky a little too, to move on and put this behind them both. And...” Steve reins in the urge to reach out and take Loki’s hand, just to have some way of conveying this with more than what feel like increasingly insufficient words,

 

 

   “I guess I felt guilty about the whole thing, and I overcompensated by going along with what Sigyn wanted because I felt partly responsible, even though I had no idea what was happening until it was too late. I wanted to make that up to her,” he admits slowly, and then, dredging up the last of his courage, manages,

 

 

   “And when she told me you couldn’t know and asked me not to tell you – made me promise – I – I just didn’t want you to be hurt anymore than you already had been and I thought – I thought maybe it’d be worth feeling horrible and guilty and dishonest if she was right and it’d spare you the worry.”

 

 

   Loki’s face is inscrutable, but his eyes shine and narrow, and Steve meets the gaze as truly as he’s able and expels on a shiver,

 

 

   “I wanted to trust that she knew you best so she’d know how to protect you and deal with everything the right way. I should have known that protecting _her_ was more important than anything else to you and you wouldn’t ever feel like being spared a little worry outweighed needing to make sure she’s okay, because...”

 

 

   Steve shrugs, straightens his spine, and admits,

 

 

   “That’s how I’d feel, too. If it were me. And I should have just understood right off that you’d prefer to know what was happening, because that’s the kind of person you are, and you care more about her than you do about taking care of yourself. Any idiot can see that.”

 

 

   “You’re not an idiot, Steve Rogers,” Loki replies very softly, warily, as though taking great pains to avoid expressing what he wants any other way than the one he has chosen,

 

 

   “But you don’t understand us, and I can’t expect – _don’t_ expect you to.”

 

 

   He inhales shallowly, and then says,

 

 

   “What I do expect, now, from you, is to be lied to, or at least to have things which do in fact concern me withheld based on whether you judge that I’m fit to hear them – a judgment the sole foundation of which is the word of Sigyn, whom you frankly have no real reason to trust as an authority higher than myself when it comes to what I can and cannot handle. She may know me better than you do, but she is not responsible for filtering the world and everything in it before it’s presented to me, and that you’d let her do that – that you wouldn’t trust me to be capable of managing any of this or even being a part of it – ”

 

 

   “Loki, I – ”

 

 

   “No, Steve,” Loki cuts across coldly,

 

 

   “It’s not your place to involve yourself in that decision. I can barely forgive the urge in Sigyn, and we at least have an arrangement when it comes to this sort of thing. I can’t tolerate it from you, and honestly, I think that should have been perfectly clear from the beginning.”

 

 

   “What are you – ” Steve starts, ice forming in his stomach, and then amends it to,

 

 

   “What does that mean?”

 

 

   “This isn’t – ” Loki tries, and then catches himself, changes his stance entirely, spine stiffening and hands curling away into sleeves as he holds his head high and then says,

 

 

   “Whatever gave you the impression that you have the right to interfere to the extent that you have is deeply regrettable, whether it was Sigyn’s initial orchestration of events or her insistence at pushing me towards you at every opportunity, but you and I are not involved in any way that would allow you to do what you’ve done and be forgiven for it.”

 

 

   He doesn’t say, _you’re not close enough for that and I don’t want you to be_ , but it’s there.

 

 

   Between the gaping he can’t control or the tears stinging his eyes which he exercises equal lack of sway over, Steve can’t be certain exactly which emotion looms largest over him right now, but he does know that the way Loki’s speaking to him and the way he’s describing this is...

 

 

   Well, it’s absolutely horrifying. But mostly – mostly Steve is angry.

 

 

   “You think that’s how I – ” he breathes, fairly vibrating with rage before he swallows just enough of it to facilitate a low, hard,

 

 

   “You listen to me, Loki, because I’m not saying this more than once and it’s something you need to hear – I never meant to get between you and Sigyn and you already know I’m as sorry as anything for how that came about last time, but _just like last time_ this happened because we were both trying to do something without worrying you when there was no need. Now, you may see that as me interfering or both of us trying to control you somehow – hell, you may even see it as me overstepping and I guess that’s maybe a little true – but neither one of us ever wanted to hurt you and in my case, even if what I’ve already told you about wanting to help Sigyn and Bucky is absolutely true, the worst part of this whole thing has been knowing that all you’d see in it is a lie in the truth I didn’t tell you, and how much that would ruin.”

 

 

   Loki’s eyes are very wide and his expression stricken, but Steve hasn’t finished yet.

 

 

   “God knows I haven’t the first idea what happened to you to make you believe that it’s not possible, but I believe that sometimes all you can do is have the best intentions and then make the choice that lets you abide by them as best you can, and that’s what I did. My best friend hates me for it. _Your_ best friend is just fine, and that’s great, that’s exactly what I’d hoped for because she deserves a little healthy closure, but that did not come easy for me to help make happen and for you to stand there and tell me that the best I could do – that ended in the only person _you_ care about in this mess feeling a lot better – wasn’t good enough because I didn’t manage to handle the part that concerned you the right way or for the right reasons – ”

 

 

   Steve shakes his head and states,

 

 

   “Well that’s just not fair. On any of us.”

 

 

   Loki says nothing, tight-lipped and pale, and Steve spreads his hands and demands,

 

 

   “So tell me what you want from me, besides for me to feel like an awful human being for not being straight with you like I should have been, because that ship sailed the minute I promised to do what Sigyn wanted and I won’t be boarding that one again in a hurry either.”

 

 

   “What I want,” Loki murmurs, a sliver of sound and syllables that barely make his features move and seem to slide past his lips as though he hardly understands them,

 

 

   “You’d like to know what I want? Truly?”

 

 

   Steve nods, keeping his expression strong and serious, and Loki tilts his head and rakes his eyes over Steve as though drawing something from the image that he needs to fuel his next words, although when they come they’re quiet and clear and sincere in a way that makes Steve’s heart pound inside his aching ribcage.

 

 

   “I want to be able to expect better of someone,” Loki tells him, a simple confession that’s obviously anything _but_ for him to part with,

 

 

   “I don’t necessarily need or want perfection on every attempt or complete unquestioning catering to my every unspoken whim. I’ve lived most of my life not just expecting the worst of the people around me but knowing without a doubt that it was all I could hope for, and now that I’m free of that, all I really want is to be able to expect just a shade better from someone than constant disappointment and endless, tiring lies. That’s all.”

 

 

   Steve can’t respond to that, can’t do anything but stare at Loki, whose features flutter strangely from blank sincerity to wistful defeat and adds, almost calmly,

 

 

   “I don’t think I’m reaching for something beyond the pale and unrealistic – I’m not asking for miracles. I just want to for once be able to look at another human being and think well of them without it being wishful thinking or a desperate hope that they’re not plotting behind my back to make me miserable.”

 

 

   “I said from me,” Steve reminds him, licking his lips with a suddenly dry tongue, the air in his lungs not enough for their needs,

 

 

   “What do you want from _me_? Because – ”

 

 

   and the hoarse raspy sound that escapes his throat isn’t quite a laugh but it must be something –

 

 

   “ – because all that’s the complete opposite of what I’ve been doing – or, trying to do – even if I wasn’t doing such a great job at it.”

 

 

   Loki doesn’t reply, but he also doesn’t look away, so Steve shifts on his feet and asks again, with all the gentleness he can force past the fear constricting his airways,

 

 

   “So just tell me... What do you want from me?”

 

 

   “I want,” Loki says hesitantly, brow creasing,

 

 

   “To believe that you weren’t lying to me. That you kept your promise.”

 

 

   **_I can’t give you that. I withheld the truth – that’s just as bad._**

 

 

   “I didn’t tell you what was going on,” Steve replies cautiously, slowly, hoping against hope that Loki will be able to accept this the way it’s intended, that it’ll appeal to the way he thinks and processes the actions of others even if it directly contradicts what Steve himself feels is the right way of looking at it,

 

 

   “But I never lied to you, and whatever I kept from you I withheld because I didn’t want it to hurt you and I trusted Sigyn when she said it was better this way, before I understood how the two of you work. I shouldn’t have – I didn’t know enough to make that call – but that’s why I did it.”

 

 

   “I know,” Loki says simply,

 

 

   “I believe that you acted as you thought best. I believe that your reasoning was flawed but that your motivation was all that could have been wished for.”

 

 

   “... and?” Steve asks shakily, and Loki steps forward, finally closing the distance between them properly, and cups Steve’s face in his hands tenderly, resting his forehead against Steve’s with a sigh.

 

 

   “And I know that you never believed that it wasn’t a lie all the same, so I can’t either,” Loki tells him, soft and almost helpless, and kisses him.

 

 

   There’s nothing ambiguous about it, nothing perfunctory or overtly indicative of Loki’s intention, but to Steve it’s more like being stabbed in the back than kissed by someone he desperately wants to spend long hours doing just that with, and it makes him pull away, enough to part them, enough to push Loki’s hair away from his face and ask,

 

 

   “What does that _mean_?” because he needs to know, needs to understand just for once what Loki’s thinking and what he’s going to do.

 

 

   “That I have no faith left over for your good intentions if I am to keep any in you as a person,” Loki replies wearily,

 

 

   “And that I can’t go on with this knowing that you’d lie to me and trust my decisions to others rather than tell me when something happens that will affect me.”

 

 

   “So..?” Steve prompts, and Loki presses his face briefly against Steve’s exposed wrist where his fingers are still buried in Loki’s hair.

 

 

   “So if we are to see each other, I can’t place anything more in it than this,” Loki says, but it’s more like a wince, his lovely face crumpled as if in some deep-rooted internal agony, and a shoot of panic lances through Steve’s chest immediately.

 

 

   “What do you mean _this_?” he asks quickly, and Loki’s right hand slides from Steve’s cheek to rest over his heart.

 

 

   Steve imagines he can feel the coolness of Loki’s fingers seeping through his clothes to soothe the tight, hot sensation clenching there.

 

 

   For a moment, he wonders what that would feel like to both of them if there was nothing between Loki’s hand and Steve’s skin and it only makes his heart feel swollen and heavy.

 

 

   “You and Sigyn,” Loki says quietly, choosing his words with a care Steve can see as well as hear is costing him a great deal,

 

 

   “Are so alike in this – how you would rather help and protect the people you care for than protect yourselves from the reaction of those selfsame people when they realise how much personal freedom you have taken away from them by just wanting to spare them a pain you felt could be avoided if you bore it alone instead.”

 

 

   Again, he presses his cheek to Steve’s wrist, brushing his lips across the slightly raised line above Steve’s pulse, and Steve’s fingers react by tangling further into Loki’s hair.

 

 

   “She does it to me even though she knows I hate it and how much it complicates everything, and you’ll do it to your friend if you think that’s what’s best, and to me if Sigyn leads by example and persuades you to follow her in doing it. Knowing that, I can’t trust you with anything approaching the ability to make choices for me, and the only way to remove that entirely is not to invest any faith in you beyond what I have in your basic decency,” Loki elaborates, and Steve remembers –

 

 

_Getting him to be that clear about what he really thinks is usually like pulling teeth –_

 

 

   and that’s exactly what it’s like. Every word Loki says comes as if he’s forcing it out and as though he’d rather die than utter it, and yet the difficulty of the delivery isn’t at all evident in his tone which is still far too soft and far too sad for Steve to bear.

 

 

   “All of this,” Loki says heavily, and Steve hears ‘ _Us_ ’ and ‘ _You and I_ ’ instead,

 

 

   “Has been too much, too soon. I can’t allow that to continue.”

 

 

   “Then what will you allow?” Steve presses, anxiety at everything Loki isn’t saying and everything he unfortunately already has making him sound a great deal more in control and demanding than he really feels, and Loki blinks at him once and lets his hand fall to Steve’s belt, pulling Steve in with the other still conveniently on Steve’s cheek and kissing him again, so intently that Steve can’t think to move unless it’s closer to Loki, hand at the nape of Loki’s neck, arm around his waist, and there’s nothing but this and how Steve can’t be sure whose heartbeat he can taste.

 

 

   Nothing has gone right for so long it seems that to Steve this is the only right thing he can remember, and there’s no sense of how Loki’s words have upset him or what horrendous guilt he’s felt for everything he’s done to lead up to this moment.

 

 

   There’s just the way Loki knows exactly how to give Steve room to breathe and just how to make him forget that he needs to, and how the aching in his lungs and the weight of his overheated heart are no match for the rippling release of tension that starts where Loki’s fingers stay cold against Steve’s jaw and his thumb strokes across the ridge under Steve’s eye and ends where Steve’s balancing on the balls of his feet to press into Loki to the extent Loki is pulling him in.

 

 

   Loki doesn’t kiss Steve as though he’s trying to take anything from him or make a point or win some unseen arbitrary victory.

 

 

   He just kisses Steve as though he’s wanted to for as long as Steve’s wanted him to and as if that’s half the reason he isn’t leaving it at that.

 

 

   The other half is in the broken noise he makes when he pulls away enough to let it mingle with the mildly obscene sound of their lips parting properly, and the way he breathes,

 

 

   “This I’ll allow,” like it’s a restriction, and Steve doesn’t understand in the slightest but when he frowns and says,

 

 

   “Loki, I – ” Loki just winds both arms around Steve’s waist and rests his forehead on Steve’s shoulder.

 

 

   “I told you that I can’t give you what you want,” he reminds Steve almost reproachfully, and Steve can’t do anything except hold him and insist,

 

 

   “ _I_ told _you_ I just want you to be happy. I still want that.”

 

 

   “And for yourself,” Loki counters, raising his head to look at Steve with searching eyes,

 

 

   “Can’t this be enough?”

 

 

   “I don’t understand what this is,” Steve admits unhappily, suddenly aware that he’s stroking Loki’s back gently.

 

 

   He doesn’t know whether to stop and he’s not sure he can unless made to.

 

 

   “This is all I can give you. I can’t let you any closer. I can’t trust that you won’t lie again,” Loki responds helplessly,

 

 

   “It can’t matter if you did.”

 

 

   “So – ”

 

 

_I don’t get a chance to prove that I won’t –_

_I can’t make this right –_

_It’s **over**._

 

 

   “So,” Steve repeats with a hitch,

 

 

   “You don’t want to see me anymore?”

 

 

   “I want to see you,” Loki contends immediately, fervently,

 

 

   “As often as possible. But not as – ” he pauses, struggling with something, and then finally ends up with,

 

 

   “I do still want to see you. I do still want _you_. But it can’t have any deeper meaning to it than that. Not – not now. Do you understand? Because _I_ can’t – I _can’t_ , Steve. Do you see?”

 

 

   Steve isn’t sure that he does.

 

 

   Or, if he does, he isn’t sure that he’s capable of understanding it, but he is positive that what’s stopping him is how little he wants to, because _this_ isn’t what he wants.

 

 

   “ _I can’t_ ,” Loki repeats, as if it’s tearing at his throat on the way out, as if he wishes he were saying anything but that, as if he knows that what Steve is hearing is,

 

 

   _‘I can’t trust you. I can’t let myself trust you. I can’t let you close enough for it to hurt when you prove me right in that.’_

 

 

 **_I_** _want to **talk** to you – **really** talk to you,_ Steve thinks as desperately as whatever is in Loki’s eyes is watching him,

 

 

_I want to hold your hand in art galleries and paint your hair in watercolours and make you laugh in front of strangers._

_I want to make you believe that I never lied to you and tell you a different truth about me every day until you know enough that you’re not afraid that we’re uneven anymore._

_I want you to want the same things and then I want to **give** them to you._

_**I** **want so much more** than to just be allowed to kiss you because we both want that._

 

 

   Steve doesn’t say any of those things.

 

 

   “Okay,” he says instead, and wishes he didn’t feel like a coward, can’t see the strange edge of defeat that curls around Loki’s mouth as he inhales sharply.

 

 

   “Okay,” Steve acknowledges, and runs both hands through Loki’s hair and down his back and can’t decide whether he hopes that Loki does or doesn’t hear the,

 

 

   ‘ _You will_ ,’ that Steve isn’t saying.

 

 

   “I get it. What you said,” Steve tells him seriously, because whatever mental blocks Loki’s building even as they speak, Steve isn’t willing to just leave it alone and he needs Loki to see that,

 

 

   “About all this being too much. That part I understand. Everything that’s happened – I get it. I made a mistake I shouldn’t have been close enough to make in the first place. I can’t go back and fix that now, but if this is all you’ll let both of us have – ” and where the confidence to stroke Loki’s cheek comes from Steve has no idea,

 

 

   “ – then that’s going to be a problem eventually. If you won’t talk to me, I’m never going to learn how to do better.”

 

 

   Something deeply wounded moves behind Loki’s eyes, and he shakes his head.

 

 

   “You shouldn’t have to and I’m not asking that of you,” he contends, frowning.

 

 

   “That’s not how it works,” Steve informs him firmly,

 

 

   “You don’t have to ask me to – that’s something I should just do all on my own, should just want to be able to do. I never would have messed this up so badly if I’d understood how you and Sigyn really work, but you’re complicated and unless you tell me what is and is not okay, I’ll keep repeating the same mistakes.”

 

 

   “I’m telling you that I won’t give you a chance to,” Loki says slowly, as if he doesn’t see why Steve’s having difficulty following that, and Steve has to smile a little if only because it’s so incredibly sad that no one has ever taught Loki this.

 

 

   “Loki... I’m the one who made a mistake, but if I’d known better that probably wouldn’t have happened. What-ifs aren’t any good to anyone, but if everyone involved had just been a little more open about what was going on, none of this would have been nearly so bad. Doesn’t that prove that shutting down and pulling away isn’t a solution?”

 

 

   There is not the slightest speck of comprehension to be found in Loki’s face.

 

 

   It’d be enough to make a lesser man break down in tears of frustration, but for all self-loathing and lack of pride have been cornerstones of Steve Rogers’ personality for as long as he has been aware enough to really have one, he is not a lesser man in this.

 

 

   “Loki,” he tries again, a little closer, a little more gently because God knows Loki needs it from someone besides Sigyn,

 

 

   “This isn’t your fault, but it shouldn’t happen again, and it will unless you talk to me. You and Sigyn clearly need to discuss how important it is to you that you know what’s going on with her, and I don’t belong in that conversation, but if you want to see me at all – that can’t work unless you tell me what’s going on, just a little bit. Not everything, just – enough to understand. It’s okay if you can’t trust me not to lie to you, I can’t ask you to from one minute to the next, that’s crazy, but...”

 

 

   Steve casts about for a way to say it, but there’s no option except directness, and he finally just asks,

 

 

   “Do you understand why it won’t work?”

 

 

   “No,” Loki says with clear, sad, guileless eyes,

 

 

   “And if I say yes right now, I really will be lying.”

 

 

   “That’s...” _shattering, awful, deeply distressing to see_.

 

 

   “Can I ask you... even if you don’t trust me – even if you don’t think you can – did you at least trust that I never would have let anything happen to Sigyn, that day? Even if you’d never known,” Steve has to know, and Loki opens his mouth to say something sharp, Steve is sure, has seen it enough that he recognises it in all its hurtful beauty, but there’s a pause, and instead Loki says, quietly,

 

 

   “The way I take care of her – the way we take care of each other – I can’t leave that to anyone else.”

 

 

   “But do you think I’d have let anything happen to her?” Steve presses, a little harder than he really thinks he has a right to.

 

 

   “I think if anything had happened to her while you considered her to be in your charge, you’d never have forgiven yourself even if you’d done everything you could to prevent it,” Loki confesses sadly,

 

 

   “And she’d have forgiven you immediately.”

 

 

   “You know,” Steve braves before his throat shrivels with the stupendous risk he’s taking,

 

 

   “She feels the same way about taking care of you as you do about her, and she trusted me with you, even after I made a mistake.”

 

 

   There is a strange, violent light behind Loki’s eyes as he says,

 

 

   “She forgives more easily than I’ve ever been able to,” and it’s obvious that there’s no compliment to her in the way he sees the matter, just undeniable truth, but Steve shakes his head stubbornly.

 

 

   “Not when it comes to you,” he states inarguably,

 

 

   “So if you’re meant to take care of her the way she does with you – if she’s the person you count on for that, even if she makes mistakes sometimes, and she trusts me with you even though you’re the most important thing in her life, maybe you can take that for what it is. It’s not any kind of guarantee, but it’s a pretty big vote of confidence from someone who’d rather wring my neck herself than let me anywhere near you if she thought I shouldn’t be. If she trusts me with herself in a situation that you hate to even think about, and she trusts me with you even though she’d resort to plain dishonesty to spare you just a little worry and she had my number from the start telling me where to get off if I didn’t have the right intentions where you’re concerned, maybe that’s something you need to consider.”

 

 

   The silence can’t last more than a few seconds, but it’s like Steve’s been watching emotions chase each other across Loki’s features for days, like the sun’s come up and illuminated them and gone down again a hundred times before he finally blinks and allows,

 

 

   “Maybe.”

 

 

   There’s no promise. There’s no telling what it contains or what might be read into it, but it’s more than Steve had dared hope for, and it can be enough until –

 

 

   Until Steve can prove that there’s more sense in that than Loki’s first choice.

 

 

   “So...” he finds himself saying, nowhere to go, the reality of their whereabouts suddenly making him uncomfortable, the question of where they’re both going from here if not in the long term then in the here-and-now, because something in Steve wants Loki to be as far away from this place and the people here as possible.

 

 

   “I... have to do something,” Loki says, cautiously, as if testing the waters, _how much can I say, how much is too much_ , and Steve nods quickly, desperate to know what other business Loki could possibly have here but unwilling to push when he’s already been given so much freedom with so much more important things.

 

 

   Steve will not take his chances with this as well – it isn’t worth it.

 

 

   “Okay,” he accepts,

 

 

   “I’ll just – ”

 

 

   “Come here,” Loki instructs, pulling Steve in by the hand and placing his fingers along Steve’s neck like he hasn’t decided whether or not to choke him yet, but without ever asserting enough pressure to hurt Steve or force him to do anything.

 

 

   It isn’t really the pulling that draws Steve in and it never has been.

 

 

   “I have to talk to Thor,” Loki intones, making it sound unbearably dull and annoying,

 

 

   “That’s all. Go home.”

 

 

   Steve’s frown hasn’t fully formed when Loki kisses him, and it doesn’t stand much of a chance at getting to in the face of how Loki aligns himself with Steve as if Steve were the taller of the two of them, the fingers still at his throat performing a complex caress which brings home to Steve the startling discovery that even collarbones as conspicuously protruding as his can be considered an erogenous zone.

 

 

   There’s nothing awkward or gawky or even slightly ungainly about Steve’s body under Loki’s hands.

 

 

   That in itself would be enough of a revelation to instantly enamour him of the state, but it’s more than that, even.

 

 

   Without shifting that imbalance onto himself and being anything other than who he is – without taking anything away from either of them – Loki manages to make Steve feel as though here and now, there _is_ no imbalance to speak of.

 

 

   Steve is just as strong and solid and capable as anyone else, and if there were nothing else behind it, this would be more than enough to convince him that he’s clearly made the right choice somewhere along the line.

 

 

   Steve’s not giving this up, and if this is how everyone feels – _although how could it be, how would they know, isn’t it more reasonable to consider this as something innate to Loki, this ability to make Steve feel as if there’s no more even playing field in the world than his arms around Loki’s waist_ – then God bless them and shouldn’t someone actualise some sort of international holiday devoted solely to this?

 

 

   Loki can’t know what Steve is thinking but he reads clear agreement with it in Loki’s eyes behind a thin veil of annoyance when Loki detaches himself and breathes,

 

 

   “You dreadful, darling creature. Go home, it’s late,” against Steve’s lips, but it’s a conscious cooperative effort to untangle arms and legs and then somehow the only awkwardness between them is the tangible desire to stay right here and continue to be inappropriate and young.

 

 

   “Go home, Steve,” Loki repeats, putting himself together with a few delicate dabs at his hair and one particularly distracting tap to his lower lip,

 

 

   “I’ll text you.”

 

 

   “Whenever you’re ready,” Steve manages, struggling rather more obviously to re-establish some semblance of self-control, and Loki’s gaze is like sudden-onset pins-and-needles shivering all the way through him.

 

 

   “Oh, you really do need to go home,” Loki murmurs heatedly, and then shimmers into non-existence while Steve is privately agreeing with his diagnosis and trying to steady the trembling of his lower extremities, which is to say, he leaves with a quiet but furtive dignity and it takes Steve a minute or two to sort himself out enough to try and find his own way out.

 

 

   In the end, it turns out to be easy to just skirt the hedge quickly and slip across the lawn to the street without anyone noticing him, and from there it’s just a walk to the nearest recognisable bus stop, the bite of late-night air in his throat not nearly enough to remove the heat of everything that Loki is, body-temperature notwithstanding, and thankfully it’s not late enough yet that it isn’t just a short wait until Steve can rely on the bus to take him home again, or near enough to, because he isn’t equipped to contain thoughts of what it might take to make Loki’s skin warmer to the touch in the same head that’s trying to get him safely home.

 

 

   Mrs. Rogers isn’t home when Steve gets in – **_Nightshift_** , the note on the kitchen board says, **_sleep well baby_** , and the number to call in case something happens – but while Steve drifts upstairs to bed, idly removing clothes and folding them away for laundry, it strikes him how odd it is that people in relationships use that term of endearment at all.

 

 

   He’s never felt more like an adult, and it’s completely wonderful, until he remembers everything before the parting, and suddenly going to sleep in a silent, empty house makes him feel all of forty inches a child, and he wonders what it might take for that to go away until his eyes grow so heavy he falls asleep despite how loud it is to be so alone.

 

 

  


	15. Bridge

 

 

 

   When Steve wakes up, it’s to the comforting sounds of his mother coming home – door being unlocked, click-click of her shoes in the hall, her bag being set down – so he knows it’s roughly eleven, and suddenly all he wants is to run down and give her a hug.

 

 

   He’s on the landing when he hears her phone ring.

 

 

   “Hello, Sarah Rogers speaking.”

 

 

   There’s a pause, and Steve isn’t sure why but he stays where he is rather than descending to greet his mother properly. When she speaks again, it sounds like she’s moved into the kitchen and her tone is quiet but firm.

 

 

   “I need you to calm down and take a deep breath for me. Okay, and another. Okay. Good. Now; what exactly happened?”

 

 

   Steve has no idea who she might be talking to – his mother has her own friends, her own life, maintains contact with several people she originally only came to know through Steve’s father, it could conceivably be anyone – but...

 

 

   “No, sweetheart, no... No, I’m not angry with you,” Steve hears his mother say, calmly, softly,

 

 

   “You don’t have to apologise... No, it’s fine. I’m coming over.”

 

 

   ...there’s only one person Steve’s mother speaks to like that besides Steve, and only one reason she’d need to.

 

 

   “Yes it absolutely is, this is not a discussion, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. It’s all going to be okay, I promise. I love you.”

 

 

   Steve can hear his mother’s coat rustling, and paper, and he walks down the remaining stairs to see her writing a note bent over the kitchen counter.

 

 

   The light from the window makes her face look grey and tired – older, suddenly – but she looks up to see him and her smile is one of something like relief as she abandons the note and takes the few steps needed to fold him into a big hug.

 

 

   “Good morning baby,” she murmurs into his hair and Steve just breathes deeply and hugs back, needing for a moment to feel that his mother’s as solid and real as always.

 

 

   “Are you leaving?” he asks, and there’s a tremor there that Steve can’t explain, matching the concern in his mother’s eyes when she draws back and places a hand on his cheek, looking him over.

 

 

   “Are you okay?” she asks lovingly,

 

 

   “You look tired.”

 

 

   “I’m fine, Mom, I just – you were out all night,” Steve accuses, and that discontentment is still there, still gnawing at him,

 

 

   “Do you have to go out again?”

 

 

   There is a look of great sadness in his mother’s eyes for all of two seconds, and then it’s replaced by a warmth that is Steve’s fondest childhood memory.

 

 

   “I only covered half a shift for Sheila, her baby has chickenpox and we both know that’s no fun at all, don’t we? She had to stay home, no mother wants to leave a sick child with a sitter,” his mother informs him a touch reproachfully, as if Steve doesn’t know full well that his own bout of chickenpox was one of the more miserable chapters of his young life and a somewhat harrowing experience for his mother to deal with,

 

 

   “And now I have to go and take care of Bucky, because everybody needs a mommy sometimes and we’re in shorter supply than you might think.”

 

 

   Steve can’t quite believe that there was any mention of ‘ _needing a mommy_ ’ in Bucky’s side of the exchange, but he knows without a doubt that no one of his acquaintance is in as dire need of a mother’s love and attention as James Buchanan Barnes and that this has sadly been the case through his entire childhood, as does Mrs. Rogers.

 

 

   That there are far fewer mothers in the world than there are children needing one is a sad truth, and it’s a sadder one still that the system in charge of allotting them is often woefully lacking. If Steve’s mother had had her way years ago when they were both still kids, Bucky could have been spared a great deal of grief. The fact that she didn’t has never stopped her from doing what she can anyway.

 

 

   “You’re a great mom,” Steve tells her seriously, hugging her again and sniffling a little when her hair tickles his nose,

 

 

   “We’re lucky to have you.”

 

 

   “I’m glad you think so baby,” his mother replies gently, then detaches herself and adjusts her coat, asking,

 

 

   “How did last night go? Did you two talk?”

 

 

   “Kind of,” Steve says carefully, following her into the hall and handing her the discarded purse,

 

 

   “He – er – was sort of – with someone, and... I told him like you said, but... he wasn’t happy about it.”

 

 

   “I thought that might be the case,” his mother sighs,

 

 

   “I’ll take care of it, don’t worry honey. Will you be okay on your own? I don’t know how long this’ll take.”

 

 

   “I’ll be fine,” Steve promises, watching her reapply her lipstick in the mirror and fluff out her hair. She doesn’t look tired. She looks determined and loving and slightly exasperated.

 

 

   She looks like his mother.

 

 

   “I love you, Mom,” he tells her quietly, and there’s a reverence in it, an unspoken gratitude and awe for everything she’s done for him and given him all his life, however hard it’s been. Her eyes shine as she reaches out to stroke his cheek affectionately and reply,

 

 

   “I love you too, baby. I just wish both my boys could stay out of trouble a little more often so I had time to sit at home and wonder why they don’t need me anymore!”

 

 

   “We’re always going to need you,” Steve says seriously, and she smiles and opens the door.

 

 

   “I know, honey. Be good while I’m gone and if you have time, could you make up the guest room bed? I might bring Bucky home with me,” she informs him, and Steve nods.

 

 

   “Sure. Is he okay?”

 

 

   Sarah Rogers’ smile softens a touch, but her voice is all reassurance when she says,

 

 

   “He will be. See you later baby,” and walks out of the house and back to the car.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t hang about to watch her leave, he just locks the door and heads back upstairs to get dressed and then changes the sheets in the guest room as asked while it’s still at the forefront of his mind, but while he’s performing the familiar task, his thoughts drift to last night.

 

 

   He wonders what Loki’s mother is like. How long it’s been since they last spoke. Whether she’s anything like as beautiful as her son.

 

 

   Whether she’s responsible for his inability to understand the importance of openness and forthright communication.

 

 

   Whether that’s something Loki can learn – or relearn as the case may be, assuming he was ever taught to begin with – and what that might take.

 

 

   What might it take for Steve to be allowed close enough to help with that? Could that ever happen at all, now, when Loki’s so set on keeping that distance emotionally?

 

 

   Steve has to wonder, however briefly, whether perhaps that just isn’t possible anymore, if the window for Steve to truly be allowed to connect with Loki has been closed and barred forever, even despite how much Steve thinks he could still see the desire to let it remain an option in Loki, that closeness he clearly needs so much more than he’s willing to admit to or accept as reality.

 

 

   That only leads to the inescapable thought that the kind of closeness Loki _is_ willing to offer is something Steve can’t begin to understand why anyone would be offering to _him_ of all people, but which last night proved beyond a shadow of any doubt that Steve desperately needs in more ways than just the painfully obvious.

 

 

   Steve has never hated his treacherously inadequate body less than when Loki is clearly demonstrating the remarkable blindness to those same inadequacies, and to everything else about Steve that Steve himself despises, which is so unique to Loki. When Loki’s touching him, or even just looking at him in that particular way of his, Steve doesn’t hate himself, doesn’t feel any less valid as a person taking up space in this world. Under Loki’s hands, the concave chest, the knobbly wrists, the raw-boned underfed air about Steve that makes him hunch his shoulders despite his height and feel awkward and about as unhealthy as he looks – it doesn’t matter.

 

 

   It doesn’t _disappear_ ; there’s no sense that all of that isn’t still _there_ , that this isn’t still Steve’s body, that same vessel he wishes daily was entirely different. It’s just not relevant. It isn’t an operative factor. It doesn’t make a difference, doesn’t impact the situation or change anything between them. Steve might as well just be any other person, in any other body, might as well not look like this at all. Loki wants him regardless.

 

 

   Loki wants him despite the fact that every inch of Steve could bear to be improved upon drastically, and it’s completely unapologetic to the point where Steve can’t be sure whether Loki really _is_ blind to Steve’s physical flaws or just doesn’t care in the slightest. Whichever is true, to Steve at least it feels more as though Loki doesn’t see what Steve sees, and whatever Loki _does_ see isn’t something Steve really needs to know about anyway. What matters is that Loki wanting him, Loki _touching_ him, is precisely what being strong and healthy and, well, _desirable_ , has always seemed it must be to Steve.

 

 

   The sense that his body can do everything he needs and wants it to, that it’s capable of anything he asks of it, that it works and cooperates exactly as it should. That it’s worth wanting the way Loki clearly, obviously, unashamedly wants it.

 

 

   Steve feels both ordinary in that perfectly satisfying sense of simply being no less than anyone else, and extraordinary in that heady sense of having been deemed good enough to want so badly by someone who is themselves so lovely, when he’s with Loki. That alone is an overpoweringly strong argument for doing his level best not to let all of this just end or trickle into nothing.

 

 

   Steve wants Loki, but he wants the way Loki makes him _feel_ with equal fervour and desperation, and he isn’t willing to give up on either without a fight.

 

 

   His phone rings as he’s smoothing out a pillowcase, and he traces the outline of it through his pocket.

 

 

   It can’t be Bucky.

 

 

   His mother should still be driving and she never makes calls while on the road.

 

 

   It’s very unlikely to be Loki.

 

 

   Bruce never calls, just texts.

 

 

   The display doesn’t reveal a number.

 

 

   Steve picks up anyway.

 

 

   “Hello?”

 

 

   “ _Hello, Steve?_ ”

 

 

   **_Oh_**...

 

 

   “Um, hey, Sigyn,” Steve greets a little awkwardly,

 

 

   “Listen, I really can’t – ”

 

 

   “ _I’m sorry, I know, I just really need to speak to you. Is now a good time?_ ” she asks, sounding almost nervous, and Steve frowns.

 

 

   “I guess,” he allows,

 

 

   “But – ”

 

 

   “ _Because I’m on your street_ ,” she interrupts.

 

 

   “ _ **Excuse me?**_ ” Steve demands incredulously, unwilling to believe that he really just heard what he thinks he heard, and she repeats,

 

 

   “ _I’m on your street. I’m parked at the end of it. I’m really sorry if that’s not – I mean, I don’t want to impose, I just – could we talk?_ ”

 

 

   It’s the slight, soft hint of tears in the last few words that break Steve’s resolve to just say ‘no’ or even properly question why in God’s name she’s here right now.

 

 

   In many ways Steve is beginning to understand how this girl has gotten so far under Bucky’s skin without even trying that he can’t excise her, why Loki would do anything for her. There’s a compelling force to Sigyn as an individual that Steve doesn’t think anyone could remain entirely immune to. He certainly can’t stand the thought of her sitting alone in a car at the end of his street, crying. Loki would never forgive him for allowing that.

 

 

   “... sure,” he says finally, heavily, feeling both defeated and as though he’s doing absolutely the right thing,

 

 

   “It’s just me here right now, and I think maybe we _should_ talk.”

 

 

   “ _Thank you_ ,” she replies, sounding truly grateful, and then hangs up.

 

 

   Steve finishes laying the bedspread over the guest room bed, closes the door, walks downstairs to the kitchen, and puts on a pot of coffee.

 

 

   He has no idea why she’s here. He has no idea what to say to her. He just knows that this time, _this time_ , he can’t give in and go along with anything. Never again. Surely he can make her understand that, surely she’ll be able to see that Steve can’t help her conceal things from Loki, that it isn’t the answer to whatever problem of communication that exists between them.

 

 

   A car door slams.

 

 

   Someone’s knocking on Steve’s front door.

 

 

   Well. Someone.

 

 

   Taking a deep breath to steel himself for the doubtless unpleasant task ahead of him, Steve goes to let her in.

 

 

   He’s not prepared for her to be stood there with her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes streaming, an image the Pre-Raphaelites would have died to put to canvas convincingly.

 

 

   He’s also not prepared for her to gasp,

 

 

   “I’m so sorry!” and throw her arms around him, but she does, and he’s left standing there in the doorway somewhat awkwardly holding on to a Sigyn who is anything but composed and whom he doesn’t know how to comfort.

 

 

   “I’m sorry,” she cries again, drawing back, the tears subsiding somewhat as she wipes at them gently,

 

 

   “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, I – ”

 

 

   She takes a deep breath, manages to clear the last tracks of moisture from her cheeks and smiles wretchedly.

 

 

   “Loki and I fought,” she offers as an explanation, voice tremulous still,

 

 

   “I know the two of you had words as well, and that’s my fault. Loki’s... well he’s really quite upset with me. Could we..?” she gestures minutely, eyes huge and hopeful, and Steve nods, overwhelmed.

 

 

   “Of course, come on in,” he replies, moving to let her enter before him, which she does, head bowed.

 

 

   “I’m really not sure what you want to talk to me about, but there are kind of a few things I need to tell you,” he informs her, closing the door behind them and watching the way she takes in the hallway, the kitchen and living room beyond, and then turns to face Steve.

 

 

   The colouring of her features and the evidence of tears contrast sharply with how her hair glitters in the hallway light. She is completely different aesthetically to Loki, but remarkably appealing nonetheless, and Steve thinks that later, once she’s gone, he might draw this moment.

 

 

   “I know,” she replies softly,

 

 

   “Or rather, I thought there might be. Loki’s furious with me for conspiring with you. I suppose you need to tell me that I shouldn’t ask you to help me with that sort of thing anymore.”

 

 

   “Well... yes,” Steve says, blinking, caught a little off guard by the sympathy and understanding in her face behind the tumult, and she nods slowly.

 

 

   “I’m not going to. I shouldn’t even have asked last time, I just – ” she stops herself, unsure, and then quietly says,

 

 

   “I put you in an unpleasant position. It was wrong of me, and I am very sorry.”

 

 

   She watches him steadily with a teardrop trembling on the lower lashes of her left eye while she presses her lips together, and for a moment, the determination of her bearing as she faces her mistake head-on and just waits for Steve to reply and pass judgment – to accept or refuse her apology – gives rise to a single thought in Steve’s head.

 

 

   This is a master class in admitting fault and not only recognising the necessity for acknowledging the error in judgment, but also the importance of not repeating it. This is actively learning from a mistake and seeking to redress its consequences while being prepared for the possible failure of that wish.

 

 

   _This is exactly what no one ever taught Bucky how to do right._

 

 

   “I shouldn’t have gone along with it,” he tells her firmly,

 

 

   “Part of me knew better and I’d promised Loki I wouldn’t go behind his back with you again, but I did it anyway. That wasn’t your fault. You may have done the asking, but I agreed to help even though I knew Loki would hate it if he found out and I wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret forever. What’s done is done, and it wasn’t just you; I could have refused.”

 

 

   Her smile trembles, but it’s there, and she hitches a little breath before nodding and quietly saying,

 

 

   “Thank you,” with grave sincerity _._

 

 

   “It’s okay,” he assures her, his own smile lightly encouraging,

 

 

   “We both made a mistake, it happens. Long as we learn from it, the world doesn’t have to end.”

 

 

   There is a fleeting moment where the same incomprehension Steve saw in Loki last night rears its unwelcome head in the slight frown on Sigyn’s face, the unhappy twitch of her lips, but she hides it carefully and well as if afraid that it’ll be addressed, and in any case Steve wouldn’t even know where to try to begin with her however much he might wish that he did because it seems so wrong that she should have to carry around such a false belief in the restriction of her own possibilities.

 

 

   All Steve can really do for her is soften his smile and suggest,

 

 

   “How about you come in the kitchen and have some coffee and we can work this out?”

 

 

   It’s reaching and he knows it, but she responds with a glowing look that seems utterly misplaced in eyes that still bear damp evidence of upset, and murmurs,

 

 

   “I’d really like that,” and Steve realises something.

 

 

   Sigyn, just like Loki, probably doesn’t get out much or do very much of anything alone, by choice. If neither one of them trusts the care of the other to anyone but themselves and they both live and work together, when would either of them ever find the time or will to socialise with anyone else for any constructive length of time? It wouldn’t surprise Steve at all if they are each the only real friend the other has, never mind how clearly they appear to have taken up the role as surrogate family and primary caretaker for each other.

 

 

   How lonely that must be, after a while, and how difficult it must seem for them to branch out when they’re so individually crippled by mistrust and doubt and fear.

 

 

   If Loki clearly needs the kind of real emotional closeness that would generally accompany an intimate relationship, Sigyn is clearly in need of the sort of dependable support and undemanding companionship a good friend should provide.

 

 

   Having just the one person to love and rely on and talk to can’t be enough for anyone, no matter how much love exists in that relationship, especially if they don’t have any real family connections to speak of.

 

 

   Everyone needs friends. Everyone should have friends. In fact, everyone should preferably have a selection of friends with whom to converse on varied subjects of shared interest and do fun things and just enjoy the company of. Even if as far as Steve’s aware all he and Sigyn really have in common is Loki, it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to build a friendship from there, and it’s not as though he doesn’t genuinely like her.

 

 

   Eventually, she and Loki will both have to relearn how to engage with others, and maybe acquiring friends beyond each other is the first tiny step on the road towards that. Steve certainly owes a great deal of the socialising he’s done in his time to the fact that Bucky’s always had a knack for gathering acquaintances and becoming part of things which he’s then dragged Steve into as well, and while they haven’t all been winners at least it’s kept Steve from ending up a doodling bullied recluse in the corner of the schoolyard.

 

 

   _... most of the time._

 

 

   In many ways, although Steve has at times resented the ease with which Bucky steps into focus and attracts all the attention going, sometimes it’s been a relief to have that to duck behind and it’s been a lot kinder to Steve’s innate shyness in social situations than the alternative. That’s not to say it hasn’t had its problems, exactly like Steve’s told Bucky it has, but Steve can absolutely understand the occasional desire to simply fly under the radar.

 

 

   You just can’t do it forever.

 

 

   Sigyn allows herself to be directed into the kitchen, graciously accepts a cup of coffee after brief advisement that she takes it black, and – in a move that jars Steve a little, although it oughtn’t really – chooses the chair Bucky usually sits in when he’s visiting the Rogers home.

 

 

   It makes Steve cast a swift glance at the clock as he recalls what his mother said about the likelihood of her bringing Bucky home with her, and Sigyn notices and immediately says,

 

 

   “If I’m taking up your time – ” half-rising from her seat, but Steve smiles and shakes his head and takes his place across from her, reassuring her that,

 

 

   “It’s fine, really, don’t worry about it. I just remembered something.”

 

 

   She settles again, but her eyes are wary, and she doesn’t appear able to let go of her concern that she’s somehow in the way, or about to be.

 

 

   “I really don’t want to put you out,” she insists,

 

 

   “So if it’s not convenient for me to be here, please tell me? I feel like I’ve already caused you enough trouble.”

 

 

   “I’m not going to lie, it hasn’t been a lot of fun for me,” Steve says frankly,

 

 

   “But it was my decision – you didn’t force me to do anything, and I trusted you to know how best to deal with Loki on this. I could have gone with my better judgment and I didn’t. I always want to help everyone, especially my friends, and I thought if this helped you and Bucky deal with what happened, it’d be worth it. I knew if Loki found out he’d be angry, just like I knew there was a good chance he _would_ find out sooner or later, and I know I promised to keep it secret as long as you needed me to but I’m really not great with that kind of thing and if Loki had ever asked I’d probably have told him the whole story.”

 

 

   “It’s increasingly clear why he likes you so much,” Sigyn tells him warmly, her smile a little more robust,

 

 

   “There’s nothing quite so seductive as integrity.”

 

 

   The statement elicits a full-body twitch in Steve that almost has him sending his coffee pitching over the edge of the table despite it being nowhere near there to begin with, and he can feel himself flushing violently as he tries to mumble something coherent to the tune of ‘ _How kind, thanks_ ’, but she doesn’t laugh or tease, just widens her eyes sadly and says,

 

 

   “I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’ll try not to do it again.”

 

 

   “No, you didn’t – well, you did,” Steve amends lamely, then hitches on a smile and goes on, “But it’s okay, seriously. I spend enough time wondering what Loki sees in me – doesn’t hurt to know there’s still _something_.”

 

 

   She wrinkles her nose and narrows her eyes a little, as if she’s sifting through his words for golden nuggets of insincerity, and when she comes up empty-handed, she just looks at him blankly and states,

 

 

   “There are _plenty_ of things to see in you, Steve Rogers. If anyone tells you otherwise, they’re trying to sell something.”

 

 

   “... _Princess Bride_?” Steve ventures, aware of how much of a dork this reveals him to be, but she laughs quietly and nods, allowing,

 

 

   “Something like that, yes. I may have paraphrased.”

 

 

   “I loved that, when I was a kid,” Steve admits,

 

 

   “Guess I still do. You kind of remind me of Buttercup, actually.”

 

 

   Sigyn’s lips twist wryly and she shrugs, tilting her head to acknowledge,

 

 

   “It’s the hair, I know,” but her eyes sparkle even when she adds,

 

 

   “I always thought Buttercup made the best of a bad lot, though, even if there were some situations where she could possibly have stood to be a little more pro-active about securing her own interests.”

 

 

   “I don’t think anyone could accuse you of not being pro-active about that,” Steve says carefully, holding back a wince,

 

 

   “But you kind of remind me of her the way you just have total faith in the people you choose to love and how that’s it for you, and maybe...” he takes a deep breath and finishes,

 

 

   “Maybe a little bit how everyone... _notices_ you, even when you’re not trying to be noticed, too, and how easy it is for people to find something to like about you. You’re memorable.”

 

 

   The sparkles dull and she lowers her eyes to the table and shrugs again, subdued and discomfited, murmuring,

 

 

   “Almost certain that’s still just the hair.”

 

 

   Steve could smile at that if it weren’t for how achingly similar this is to what he’s seen in Loki – that inability, practically a _refusal_ , to see themselves for the truly remarkable individuals they are. The clear insistence that the positive way others see them isn’t relevant truth.

 

 

   “It really isn’t,” Steve replies as gently as he can, unsure how far she can be pushed on this when he’s already intimately acquainted with Loki’s response to the same approach,

 

 

   “You and Loki – the way you look and carry yourselves – it’s hard not to see and it’s a lot harder to forget. Some people have that. You look at them and you just know they’re interesting.”

 

 

   She doesn’t say anything, but at least then she’s not disputing it, and Steve wonders whether this is her general reaction to being cornered on this issue, whether she’s allowing him the liberty of speaking his piece without argument because they’re sort-of-friends by now, or whether if they were closer she’d feel more secure in arguing with him or just telling him to back off.

 

 

   Loki argued. Loki got angry and defensive and snapped and denied it and didn’t understand when Steve wouldn’t budge. Steve had assumed that was Loki’s default position when already stressed and upset. He has no idea what Sigyn’s default response is to this sort of thing.

 

 

   “I didn’t mean...” he begins awkwardly, trying to save the situation, but she just shakes her head and waves a hand vaguely – dismissively.

 

 

   “It’s alright,” she claims, looking at him again,

 

 

   “It’s fine. I know you weren’t trying to upset me – that isn’t something you do. And... thank you.”

 

 

   “Thank you?” he echoes, confused now,

 

 

   “For what?”

 

 

   “For...” she pauses, sucks on her lower lip for a second, and then smiles ever so slightly,

 

 

   “For not just calling me _pretty_. I... think I understand what you were saying, and thank you. It’s nice to be told I have a memorable presence and look like an interesting person for a change. So thank you, for that.”

 

 

   “Well you do,” Steve says with rather embarrassing openness, because that is exactly what he was saying – or trying to – and that is what strikes him about her just as it is what struck him about Loki the first time he ever saw him. They’re not just attractive, they look like interesting people – seem like talking to them would be an experience you’d remember and welcome a repeat of,

 

 

   “You both do.”

 

 

   “Thank you,” she says sincerely, smile warming, and then it flickers, shuttering like a candle buffeted by a stray breeze of insecurity, and she hazards,

 

 

   “I suppose you know what it feels like to only ever be seen as one thing and discounted as an individual for it.”

 

 

   “Yeah,” Steve acknowledges simply, and her gaze sharpens fiercely as she insists,

 

 

   “But it isn’t true of either of us – it has nothing to do with the reality of who we are as people, the way we’re seen by others who don’t know us at all.”

 

 

   “I think that’s true for almost everyone,” Steve ventures,

 

 

   “I think everyone contains a lot more than you can see just by looking; the problem is that a lot of people don’t take the time to take another look at all. I think...”

 

 

   He pauses, trying to find a way to express it properly, and ends up with,

 

 

   “I think it’s too easy to just judge people by what we think we see and forget that we’ve all got our own stuff going on to deal with that might affect _how_ we’re looking and that _they’ve_ probably got their own stuff going on too. It’s easier to be selfish and shallow. It’s easier not to look too deep or get involved. Most people don’t unless something happens to make them sit up and realise they can and probably should sometimes.”

 

 

   Sigyn watches him speak with a very strange focus to her features, absorbing everything and filing it away carefully, and when he’s done, she says,

 

 

   “Like you tried to do for your friend.”

 

 

   Steve flushes as he realises that there is a parallel in what he just said to what he said to Bucky when he told him that, given the option, Steve wouldn’t trade his own ability to look beyond the superficial to the reality that everyone you meet is a person with their own life whose struggles and dreams you might never understand for Bucky’s easy grasp on socialising and lack of difficulty in making himself an equal part of things.

 

 

   He doesn’t know how much of that she’s aware of, but he does know that Bucky’s at least _mentioned_ that Steve set him straight on a few things where common decency and respect for others are concerned, and Steve isn’t sure how to translate the ease with which she’s referencing it.

 

 

   “He told you about that..? Yeah, I – I kind of... I got angry and said some things that’d been a long time coming. Not just about – about how he was dealing with you rejecting him – but about a lot of other stuff too. I felt bad about it afterwards, but it’s a good thing I got it out there,” he says honestly, because by this point he’s willing to internalise what his mother’s told him on the subject and he really does see that if he had kept quiet things only would have grown worse between he and Bucky in the long run.

 

 

   “You have to be honest with the people who mean the most to you,” Sigyn agrees carefully,

 

 

   “Even if it might hurt them to hear it, initially.”

 

 

   Steve doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to, because she shrugs a little, inwards, as if shying towards the heat of the cup between her hands, and adds,

 

 

   “You are much braver when it comes to that than I am.”

 

 

   “I don’t think so,” Steve replies quickly,

 

 

   “I think it’s a lot harder to try and handle everything on your own, and I _know_ it’s a lot harder trying to pretend that nothing’s going on so you won’t hurt the person who probably needs to know more than anyone. I’ve seen how hard you work to take care of Loki and I can’t even begin to follow some of the hoops you both jump through to protect each other, but I know it has to be hard making it look so easy, even to people who are paying attention.”

 

 

   Sigyn nods slowly, blinking, and finally murmurs,

 

 

   “No one ever took care of Loki as well as they should have – as well as they pretended to – and he didn’t deserve that, Steve. He deserves... just... _better_ , I suppose, than all that.”

 

 

   “Neither of you deserved to be treated badly,” Steve says firmly,

 

 

   “And Loki’s just as lucky to have you as you are to have him. I just think you both need to... let each other feel things, sometimes.”

 

 

   He’s not sure he’s said that the way he wanted to, and the quizzical look she gives him lends credence to his doubt, but he continues, aware that his hope that he’ll make plainer sense this time is audible,

 

 

   “I mean – I held off for a long time on telling Bucky how I felt about the way he’d been acting for a while now, because I felt guilty for feeling that way at all, but – I guess because I just didn’t want to hurt his feelings, too, even though it just got worse and I was starting to really _resent_ him for a lot of things, and...”

 

 

   It hits him suddenly that perhaps this is not the best example to be providing her with, but her expression is nothing but attentive, so he forges onward with,

 

 

   “In the end, I told him in the heat of the moment and I regretted it afterwards. It wasn’t until I talked to my Mom about it that I realised I probably should have said all those things a long time ago before it got this bad, so we could deal with it, and once it’d already happened, even though I still felt guilty about being so harsh, it did Bucky a whole lot of good after he’d had time to think about it.”

 

 

   She nods, but before Steve can help himself he adds,

 

 

   “I mean, obviously, what happened with you was awful and that _really_ wasn’t supposed to happen – even though in the end it really helped – er – get the message through, but – um – oh my God, I’m sorry – ”

 

 

   Sigyn just waves away the burgeoning panic with an almost guilty little grin as he realises his blunder and cuts across his apology with a solid,

 

 

   “ _Really_ , Steve, it’s alright, don’t worry.”

 

 

   “Are you sure? Because – ”

 

 

   **_Loki told me how badly you dealt with all that –_ **

 

 

   “ – I know it wasn’t a great time for you, and...”

 

 

   **_I don’t want to bring it up if you really just want to put it behind you; it’s one thing to encourage Loki to peek under your bandages to check everything’s healing right, it’s another thing for me to do it without even asking –_ **

 

 

   “Steve,” she says kindly, and he watches her carefully for signs that there is anything but calm there,

 

 

   “Really, it’s fine. _I’m_ fine. Honestly it’s a refreshing change to speak to someone who provides useful examples from their own life that contain applicable relevancies instead of being spoon-fed the same tired advice over and over.”

 

 

   The furrow between his brows is mainly confusion at the sanguinity she’s displaying, but she reads the slight question there as well and shrugs it off with a distant,

 

 

   “Therapy, you know.”

 

 

   Steve is not surprised that she and Loki are both in therapy, it just isn’t something he’s spoken to either one of them about directly, so he really doesn’t know how to carry the conversation from there, but Sigyn seems not to wish to dwell on the topic and moves quickly on to,

 

 

   “One of the things Loki and I discussed was the fact that of everyone involved, I was really the only one who benefited positively from all the lying, in the end, and I know you came out of it suffering particularly unfair consequences.”

 

 

   She heaves a sigh and quietly adds,

 

 

   “I wish you’d told me, afterwards, when we spoke. If I’d known how awful you felt, I would have told Loki immediately.”

 

 

   “Did he...” Steve ventures, really not sure whether that’s supposed to be secret or not,

 

 

   “Did he... mention... talking to me? That day?”

 

 

   She nods. There is a pressed, apprehensive look about the way she holds herself as she admits,

 

 

   “He told me, when I got home. I know he wanted to see you.”

 

 

   It sits between them for a moment, nestling into the silence to stare them both down, and Sigyn crumples before it, finally.

 

 

   “He was so _happy!_ I couldn’t tell him – I couldn’t take that from him!” she cries,

 

 

   “And I know it was partly selfish as well – I just wanted to keep it to myself for a little while until I understood how I felt about it all now, and then when he was so _pleased_ and he’d taken _such_ a big step...”

 

 

   She lifts her hands helplessly – not asking to be excused but simply unable to excuse it adequately and well aware of the fact – before letting them fall to the table again, still and pale as she stares into the surface of her coffee cup.

 

 

   “I couldn’t upset him. He’s so rarely happy like that – just, _purely_ happy – that I couldn’t force myself to ruin it, and at the same time it was the perfect reason to keep the secret, just until his mood evened out a little, until I had a clearer picture of why I did it and what the real results were because I knew he’d ask when I eventually told him everything... I couldn’t upset him. Not even knowing that your potential happiness might hang in the balance. I couldn’t do it.”

 

 

   The way she looks up at Steve, eyes bejewelled with tears that briefly make her lashes appear hung with icicles in the warmth of his mother’s kitchen, he doesn’t doubt that she’d repeat the mistake if she had the chance. That she’d stay silent, both for the sake of keeping something close that she couldn’t yet correctly process, and for the sake of preserving whatever precious moments of actual contentment she had seen in Loki and been unable as well as unwilling to defile.

 

 

   “I am _not_ as brave as you,” she insists, a touch thickly through a tremulous smile,

 

 

   “I can’t do what’s necessary in the moment if it means upsetting someone I love. I have to wait until I’m sure there’s no other way before I can bring myself to make the decision. There was a time I was more generally reckless, but even then I never could have brought myself to disrupt Loki’s happiness unless I had no other choice, and it’s just as much for me as it is for him. It hurts me to hurt him, you see. It feels wrong. Disloyal.”

 

 

   “I understand,” Steve replies gently,

 

 

   “That’s pretty well exactly how I felt about yelling at Bucky like I did. You’re not supposed to hurt your friends, but you are supposed to stick with them and tell them the truth when they need it, and I guess... sometimes those two things don’t even out nicely. People get hurt anyway. I don’t think you can ever protect someone completely – especially not from themselves. That’s the hardest part of caring about someone.”

 

 

   She nods, absorbed in thought, and finally says,

 

 

   “They start to matter more to you than yourself, and it clouds everyone’s judgment.”

 

 

   “You could put it that way,” Steve agrees, and she reaches up to dab at her eyes again.

 

 

   Steve wonders how much she’s cried today, for them to look so raw.

 

 

   “Everyone always hurt him,” she murmurs, a deep, twisted guilt behind the words,

 

 

   “And no one ever seemed to care.”

 

 

   She looks up at Steve again, defeated, and adds,

 

 

   “I’m not supposed to do that. I’m supposed to be different.”

 

 

   “You _are_ different,” Steve states, clearly, purely truthful,

 

 

   “No one in a million years would believe you’d ever hurt Loki on purpose. As far as I can tell, you spend most of your time taking care of him and doing anything you can to _keep_ him from getting hurt. There’s a reason he loves you like he does. He wouldn’t talk about you like that if he didn’t. I thought for sure he was going to cut me off completely because I’m Bucky’s friend after what happened with you – I’m still kind of surprised he didn’t!”

 

 

   “Oh, no,” she says immediately, as if affronted by the very idea,

 

 

   “No, I never would have let him do that – you had _nothing_ to do with that debacle and taking it out on you because he was worried about me would have been a huge mistake and it wouldn’t have benefited anyone.”

 

 

   Steve doesn’t have time to marvel over how easily it comes to her to claim that she wouldn’t have _allowed_ Loki to react like that – as if it’s within her power to direct which way his emotions fall to influence his decisions – because she goes on with,

 

 

   “Thankfully he didn’t. At no point did he ever think to connect you to proceedings in a negative way – in fact he worked hard to dissociate you entirely but I managed to bring him round to see that really, your involvement was a blessing because there’s no question that you’re a good influence and of course you’d never have condoned all of that nonsense if you’d known a thing about it beforehand.”

 

 

   “... thank you? I think?” Steve tries, and she looks briefly ashamed until it’s replaced by candour and she tells him without a trace of reserve,

 

 

   “I’d almost decided already, then, that I was going to ask you to help me. I needed Loki to see things that way so that if you agreed, when Loki found out he’d forgive more easily. I needed him to have that faith in your judgment and I needed him to express it so that after it was done, he couldn’t deny that I was right to trust you – not when he’d already admitted to finding you worthy of it.”

 

 

   “That’s...” Steve hasn’t the courage to state it outright, but to his thinking, it’s positively diabolical.

 

 

   He isn’t sure whether to be impressed or horrified that in her apparently delicate state after the Episode she was capable of machinations of this calibre to lay the groundwork for a plan she hadn’t even fully decided upon yet and wasn’t certain of why she wanted to implement. Combined with the undeniable gratification of her guileless admission of trust in him, Steve isn’t equal to this blend of dismay, grudging admiration, and discomfort.

 

 

   “Manipulative,” she provides, sounding slightly sad but looking quite determined,

 

 

   “I know that’s how it must sound to you. You’re not like Loki and I, you’re more direct. If I’d tried to present this to Loki directly, after what had happened and how dreadful I’d found all of that, he’d have thought I was completely mad – feared for my sanity outright. I had to prepare him gently to avoid that. Ease him into feeling better about it by making sure he’d be receptive to the fact that your involvement was a positive.”

 

 

   Steve thinks of Loki’s anguished expression last night, of how he tore the description of Sigyn’s pain out of himself like shrapnel from a wound, and how clearly her upset had marked him.

 

 

   _‘I was frightened,’_ Loki said, never more honest, and Steve understands.

 

 

   Honestly, Steve has no trouble believing that if Sigyn had told Loki she wanted to speak to Bucky after all of that, even if she felt that it was what was best for her after careful consideration, Loki would never have understood. It’s not a stretch to think that he would have forbidden any such thing, overwhelmed by the desire not to allow her anywhere near anyone who had done her such harm before, threatened her composure so thoroughly.

 

 

   _Frightened **her.** _

 

 

   “I thought – I mean, I hoped you felt that way, about me,” Steve tells her honestly,

 

 

   “I hoped you didn’t think I was a part of all that stuff, and when you asked me to help, after...”he shrugs and ventures,

 

 

   “I really hadn’t expected you to ever want to see Bucky again, so I won’t say I wasn’t really surprised and I sure didn’t understand exactly why you wanted to – I kind of worried, just a little bit, that you might have asked so you could torture him some for everything he did, and I guess you’d have been justified there, but after I’d talked to him what I really wanted was to just give both of you a chance to talk it out, you know? Clear the air.”

 

 

   She nods, serious and listening intently, and Steve rubs his arm nervously and continues,

 

 

   “So I was really glad, in a way, when you asked me to help set it up so you two could meet, and even if I didn’t really understand where you were coming from asking me to do that in the first place, I was kind of happy you trusted me to be there when you put yourself in that situation. I saw how upset you were, when you hit him, and...”

 

 

   He takes a deep breath and releases it slowly, managing to keep the guilt from his voice when he says,

 

 

   “Even though I was totally sure there was no way in hell Bucky would do anything that stupid again and I trusted him not to screw up on just telling you the truth like he’d told me, part of me was worried because...”

 

 

   Her eyes shine, and Steve has to go on.

 

 

   “Taking care of you is a big responsibility, and if anything happened to you, even if it was because _you_ chose to be there, I knew Loki would never forgive me, but I’d never forgive myself either. I don’t mean that like – like I don’t think you can handle your own decisions or – I just – you know you’re Loki’s whole world?” he asks earnestly, needing her to understand him on this.

 

 

   It startles a little laugh out of Sigyn, but she swallows it down and nods instead, a sorrowful, compassionate light suffusing her features.

 

 

   “I know,” she replies quietly, and of course Steve knows that she does – she and Loki both clearly know just what this strange symbiosis of love and guardianship they’ve crafted for themselves out of nothing is and means, and _Steve_ is really the one who hasn’t a hope of ever completely understanding it, but at the same time, it is vital that Sigyn realises that because she is the centre of Loki’s universe and Loki is precious to Steve now, this regard and mindfulness where Loki is concerned has to extend to her as well.

 

 

   “I’m not sure you do,” Steve says frankly, and she frowns, straightening her spine and biting her lip while Steve squares his shoulders and lays it all out there as sincerely as he can,

 

 

   “But it’s like this. I know that if I screw up with Loki somehow, we might be able to eventually work it out between us. If I screw up with _you_ – if something happens to you because I made the wrong call or even just if Loki thinks for a second that it _could_ have happened as the result of something _I_ did or didn’t do, that’s it. He might eventually forgive me for hurting _him_ , but there is no chance he would _ever_ forgive me if he thought he could link back something I did to _you_ getting hurt. I know you hurt when he does, but it goes both ways, and even though I don’t fully get how you two work, I know this much – ”

 

 

   He has to take a breath, has to take a moment to feel his lungs shudder and his throat try to close, but he’s equal to _this_ , he’s sure of that –

 

 

   “It’s not just that Loki would never forgive me; I’d never forgive myself. For both your sakes, and for me as well. It doesn’t matter to me that there was no real chance anything was going to go wrong when you spoke to Bucky – the fact that you trusted me to help you do that was a big deal, and if that helped you in general, that was worth it because you deserved that – but I know even the tiniest possibility of you not being okay matters more to Loki than anything in the world, and for me that makes you trusting me with that situation and with not telling until you felt ready for Loki to know even more of a problem.”

 

 

   Sigyn’s eyes are wide and solemn, and she blinks them slowly as she takes in Steve’s words. Once he’s finished, she seems to pause, waiting for something. He allows it, and when she finally does open her mouth to speak he’s glad he did, because it seems she was waiting for _herself_.

 

 

   “I know Loki told you about my... reaction... to everything that happened,” she informs him, clearly deeply uncomfortable, and Steve suddenly realises what the lack of a number on his display earlier means – a lingering remnant of the overwhelming, unreasonable paranoia she had voiced after Bucky’s... attentions.

 

 

   Loki did indeed tell Steve all about locks, about changing numbers, about convincing her she didn’t have to move.

 

 

   In fact, Loki didn’t even have to give Steve the reasoning behind all of that – it doesn’t really matter what came before, in some early childhood horror no doubt, to plant the seeds of that fear. It’s enough that Steve knows that Sigyn’s faith in her own basic security – the inviolability of herself even in her home – had been compromised so completely that she clung to the comforting stability of Loki’s presence in her life for days because she _couldn’t_ be alone.

 

 

   It’s enough that Steve knows that the selfish actions of his best friend took away the composure and strength of this young woman – upon which Loki relies so obviously and has fought so hard to help her achieve and keep – to the extent that she was reduced to being unable to even bathe alone and unguarded.

 

 

   “He said you were pretty upset,” Steve admits, as diplomatically as he can. There’s no reason to mention the panic they both know he’s had painted for him in vivid detail by someone who lived it closely enough to hate the root of it and all subsequent catalysts of resurgence with a vicious, abiding will.

 

 

   “I was in a bad place,” she says carefully, sweeping her hair over her shoulder, fingering it nervously as if checking that it’s still there.

 

 

   Steve wonders how much it weighs – whether she notices anymore after what must be years of carrying it around like a crown.

 

 

   He wonders what she said to Bucky the day Steve watched the relatively simple gesture reduce him to the scorched bareness of unadulterated guilt in the face of it.

 

 

   “I...” she shifts her gaze to the ceiling, as if reaching into the air for words, but finally she looks back down and away to the side and says, very softly,

 

 

   “I was terrified. My reaction frightened Loki badly. It’s been... a very long time, since anything affected me like that and I couldn’t... couldn’t move past it all at once.”

 

 

   “That’s understandable,” Steve offers as calmly as possible, and she nods, now studying her fingers intently.

 

 

   “I know it makes me sound horrible, but after I had a chance to... I suppose _confront_ your friend face to face – after I’d recovered from the initial shock of that... I felt better able to deal with all the fear from before. I felt more in control,” she admits, and Steve wonders whether watching her like this – hearing her talk about it as if she’s afraid to hear her own voice – would sadden or enrage Loki.

 

 

   “It makes sense,” he replies, tone light and lacking any and all judgment,

 

 

   “Facing your fears is always better than hiding from them.”

 

 

   “I’m not sorry I hit your friend,” Sigyn states, strong and decisive on this point at least, and Steve has to smile just a little.

 

 

   “You shouldn’t be. He had it coming and it did him good in the end, even my Mom thought so and she’s always hated us getting into fights,” he informs her, and Sigyn looks mildly perturbed by this acceptance of her actions.

 

 

   “Really?” she asks, concerned,

 

 

   “I told Loki... after it happened and I’d calmed down, I told Loki I felt like I owed you an apology for doing that. Loki didn’t think you’d see it that way.”

 

 

   “I guess Loki knows me better than he believes,” Steve mumbles, flushing, ridiculously – perversely – pleased that Loki got that right, that Loki understood this about Steve without ever needing to be told, and adds at a more forthright volume,

 

 

   “You’ve got the right to do whatever you feel you need to do in a situation like that, I don’t think anyone could argue differently. The police sure didn’t think so when they called about it and my Mom agreed with them. I’m pretty sure Bucky thought he deserved it more than anyone – ”

 

 

   Steve clamps his mouth shut and tenses up immediately, but Sigyn just nods morosely.

 

 

   “That may have come up when we spoke,” she allows, fingers twining into her hair, twisting strands into and around one another.

 

 

   “I ...” Steve hesitates for a moment and then takes the plunge,

 

 

   “You said – ” he has to stop and swallow, lick his lips and square his shoulders to try again.

 

 

   “You said...” he looks up and she’s watching him, slight frown and clouded eyes and so young that for a second, Steve isn’t sure he has the right to say this at all, that it should ever be said, that she should ever have to deal with that, but movement alerts him to the fact that her finger is tracing the edge of her cup, and he steels himself.

 

 

   “You said Bucky wasn’t so bad, after you’d talked to him, and – he’s really not,” he blurts, aware that he sounds horribly ashamed although he can’t be sure why exactly,

 

 

   “He’s never done anything like that before – I’ve known him his whole life, and I know that’s not an excuse and you just can’t tell sometimes, but – the reason I was so shocked when I found out was because even though I know he’s got his problems, I never thought he’d take them out on someone else like that – treat someone else like that – and – ”

 

 

   Steve has no idea where he’s going with this, sure he’s botched it horribly anyway, and he’s so panicked about it that he doesn’t register the way she’s shaking her head at first.

 

 

   “Steve... Steve, I _know_. I know,” she says softly, and there’s a tremble to every line of her but nothing in her voice, and he focuses on that, how strange it is.

 

 

   “It – he made it very clear,” Sigyn says carefully,

 

 

   “That everything he did was of his own volition and that none of it was in any way related to you. He was... very concerned that you’d be thought less of for what he’d done. I had to be quite firm in assuring him that I was already aware that you had nothing to do with his poor choices, but he told me all about how unimpressed you’d been with what you did know before everything went very badly wrong, and...”

 

 

   There is an odd hitch – Steve can read it in her face but it’s there in the rest of her body as well, as if she’s holding her breath, and when she releases it, she says, without the slightest trace of emotion,

 

 

   “He told me that the two of you had enjoyed a very frank discussion about just how poor those choices were, and what an impact that had, but even though he admitted that he was upset with you before and felt that he’d disappointed you too much now to ever make up for it in your eyes, he didn’t at any point express any animosity towards you for tricking him into being there and speaking to me. He said he’d told you that he absolutely did not want to ever see me again – apparently he also made a promise to your mother to that effect – and that meeting me was not his idea and really not something he wanted to participate in, but he was extremely anxious to make sure I came away with a good impression of you and your motives.”

 

 

   Steve knows his mouth is open, and he knows it’s stupid, but he can’t help that just now.

 

 

   “Why...” he attempts, and she places one hand on top of the other, like she wants to wring them but is controlling the urge.

 

 

   “I thought you should know,” she says quietly,

 

 

   “You’re still upset about hurting him, and about lying, and I think you should know that even if he was probably angry about it to some extent, he was the first to admit that you made the right choice where he hadn’t been able to. However disappointed and hurt he may have been by the trickery, it was just as important to him that I come away with a good impression of you as it was for him to tell me everything.”

 

 

   On the one hand, Steve can’t quite reconcile that to how deeply resentful Bucky has been of him since it happened or the way he’s behaved towards Steve, but on the other it’s entirely plausible on the sole strength that whatever flaws Bucky has, disloyalty is not among them.

 

 

   The fact that this apparently shone through even in the face of Steve’s betrayal of his trust in setting him up to be face to face with Sigyn again is both moving and deeply encouraging to Steve after all this recent evidence of just how flawed Bucky is and can be.

 

 

   “If nothing else,” Sigyn adds, completely neutral,

 

 

   “That at least is an entirely admirable thing.”

 

 

   “Yeah...” Steve manages, then, clearing his throat and smiling slightly,

 

 

   “That – thanks for telling me. I’ve been pretty worried that he’d hate me forever over this, and... I’m just really glad he took the trouble to do that despite how mad at me he was.”

 

 

   “I may not know the two of you particularly well, and you’re clearly very different to myself and Loki in the way you interact, but I don’t believe he’ll hold a grudge over this forever,” Sigyn says, kind but cautious,

 

 

   “It just isn’t as easy to let go of the hurt when it comes from someone you’re very close to, and I certainly received the impression that he values your presence in his life _very_ highly, even when you do tell him unpleasant truths.”

 

 

   Her gaze grows considering, and then she adds,

 

 

   “I do think you made the right choice, not to tell him beforehand, however much you both prefer to be more direct about this sort of thing. It wouldn’t have worked if you hadn’t.”

 

 

   “He never would have changed his mind about not seeing you again,” Steve says honestly,

 

 

   “I’m sure of that. But I’m glad he defended me to you – that’s a good sign. Not just for him taking responsibility for what he did, but for him eventually forgiving me. He’s just... going through some stuff right now.”

 

 

   Steve sighs and admits,

 

 

   “Maybe if I’d realised that earlier I could have helped him deal with it and none of this would have happened.”

 

 

   “He didn’t want you to realise,” Sigyn tells him,

 

 

   “You and your mother are his primary anchors to normalcy in the everyday. He wouldn’t have wanted to let you see what he was struggling with in case it affected the way you saw _him_ , treated him. It isn’t the most mature way of handling things but it’s hardly surprising that it appealed to him the most out of all the possible solutions.”

 

 

   “... I’m sorry, it’s just really weird that he told you that,” Steve manages after staring at her in shocked silence for a few seconds, and she shrugs minutely.

 

 

   “He must have felt that he needed to,” is all she says, and Steve frowns.

 

 

   “I know I told him to tell you everything he told me, but – he didn’t – he didn’t try and put any of that on you and make you feel bad, right? I mean, he was supposed to be honest about it but his problems aren’t an excuse for the way he treated you – ”

 

 

   “He didn’t,” she interrupts softly,

 

 

   “It all sounded rather like something he’d said before – I assumed it was exactly what he said it was; what he’d told you and been instructed to pass on if he got the opportunity.”

 

 

   She looks away and nibbles on her lower lip for a moment, hand going to her hair again, and continues,

 

 

   “It wasn’t _pleasant_ to hear, but... that wasn’t the intention behind it.”

 

 

   She meets Steve’s eyes wearily and adds,

 

 

   “It was never going to be enjoyable. I already knew that. But there was no sense that what issues he did share were meant as an excuse; there just simply isn’t any way to share that sort of thing without a little discomfort on the listener’s part.”

 

 

   “I... good,” Steve says finally, certainly,

 

 

   “That’s not what it was meant to be about. Explaining’s one thing – whining for the sympathy vote is a different ballgame.”

 

 

   “There wasn’t any whining,” she assures him,

 

 

   “I’d have left.”

 

 

   “I guess I should have expected you would have,” Steve says with a smile.

 

 

   She returns it just barely.

 

 

   “Can I ask... you only ever refer to Bucky as my friend. Is that just – easier?” Steve ventures hesitantly, and Sigyn watches him for a long moment, as if internal scales are weighing her regard for Steve against some private measure.

 

 

   “It’s easier for me not to hate him if I remind myself that he’s your friend,” she admits, and she forms the words so crisply – slowly and deliberately, as if it’s incredibly important that everything be completely understandable,

 

 

   “If he wasn’t, I would have pressed charges. I never would have wanted to see or speak to him again, even for the sake of closure. It’s like I told Loki – I trust your judgment. I don’t believe you’d call someone your best friend if they were a fundamentally dreadful person.”

 

 

   “I’d like to think I wouldn’t,” Steve allows,

 

 

   “I’ll admit that when Bucky was telling me about everything he’d done, there were a handful of moments where I...”

 

 

   He stops, recalls the emotion, and closes his eyes.

 

 

   “I think I kind of hated him for having done it. Then I was pretty hard on myself for not realising what had gone on, and now I’m sort of just disappointed in my own reaction, but in the moment I seriously questioned whether I could forgive him.”

 

 

   “That can’t have been easy.”

 

 

   “I’m pretty ashamed of myself for doing it,” Steve tells her quietly,

 

 

   “But I know why I thought that, and it helped to know that he was genuinely sorry. I’ve known him my whole life, and I’ve never seen him as sorry as that for anything he’s done. That counts for something.”

 

 

   _People make mistakes, honey_ , he hears his mother say, _as long as they know what they did wrong and they’re truly sorry for it so you know they won’t ever do it again, there’s no reason to believe they can’t and shouldn’t be forgiven._

 

 

   “He’s lucky that you’re the sort of person you are,” she remarks, and Steve tries to smile.

 

 

   “I’m not always perfect either. I’ve been a lot luckier with some things than he has and we’re pretty different at heart – I can’t exactly judge him,” he opines,

 

 

   “And I’m really glad you’ve seen a better side of him, because he’s not an awful person. I guess Loki was right when he told me you forgive more easily than he does.”

 

 

   “Perhaps to some extent...” she says after a moment, not meeting his gaze,

 

 

   “But wanting to meet your friend wasn’t really about him at all. I know that, now. It was totally selfish.”

 

 

   “I don’t really...” Steve begins, but she shakes her head and he shuts his mouth, letting her find what she needs to say without interruption.

 

 

   “I couldn’t tell Loki before,” she murmurs,

 

 

   “Because I wasn’t even sure why I made the decision. I just knew I had to do it. Afterwards... It took me a while to really find the problem – figure out what was going on and how I felt, but...”

 

 

   A single tear streaks her face, viscous in this light. For some reason, Steve thinks it’s probably hot and uncomfortable to the touch, burning a line right through the cool of her usually competent, controlled façade.

 

 

   Momentarily, the situation divides into two layers – the reality of what Steve is really seeing and hearing right now, and the distorted overlay of Bucky’s voice, the words ‘ _melt through some of all that ice_ ’.

 

 

   That is literally the last thing in the world this girl appears to need anything outside herself attempting.

 

 

   “This is really the only time I’ve ever had an opportunity to actually sit down with someone who has treated me like that and ask why they made that choice – why it had to be _me_ ,” she breathes, jagged and with a faint whine behind the vowels as if her throat doesn’t want to release them,

 

 

   “And... I needed that... Because part of me – ” she swallows and bows her head as if she’s confessing to something reprehensible, something twisted and unacceptable, and Steve can barely hear the rest of it when she continues,

 

 

   “Part of me’s always believed that it was my fault, whenever this... this sort of thing... and I... wanted to know...”

 

 

   And then, _Steve_ knows.

 

 

   Knows what she said to Bucky to make him look so wretched.

 

 

   She asked him why it had to be her, and then she must have told him just a little of what she herself struggles with – humanised herself to the point where she is inarguably, undeniably just a fellow human being.

 

 

   Not just _pretty_. Not just an object to be idealised.

 

 

   It’s worse to know that you’ve transgressed upon someone just like yourself – an individual with problems and dreams who hurts and feels – because then you can’t distance yourself anymore, at all.

 

 

   She must have asked Bucky why he chose to do this to her, and for all his reasons there can’t have been a way to respond without acknowledging that, at least for a while, he did it for no better reason than that he felt he had a right to her because to him she wasn’t a person, just something to aspire to and acquire.

 

 

   Bucky may have reached a point where he saw her more clearly as an individual, but speaking to her like that had to have torn away the final veil of distance.

 

 

   _‘I want her to be happy’_ , Bucky had said, and ‘ _I hate that I put myself before her_ ’.

 

 

   If she’d told him – even hinted – at her struggles, the root of her ability to empathise with having no family life to speak of, Bucky can’t have failed to see the parallel and understand the gravity of what he’d done to her.

 

 

   She’ll have been too real not to see.

 

 

   But...

 

 

   “This isn’t the first time this has happened?” Steve has to ask, stunned, and she shakes her head heavily, as if her tears are leaden weights.

 

 

   “No,” she says, simple and so tired, and Steve just stares at her.

 

 

   **_Of course it isn’t_** , he thinks, and, **_so that’s why she does it_**.

 

 

   What he says, is,

 

 

   “Did you – did you tell _Bucky_ that? When you asked him why?”

 

 

   She nods, not meeting Steve’s eyes, and it all falls into place at once, thundering in Steve’s ears and jarring his teeth.

 

 

   Strangely, the first thing that occurs to him is that Bucky got his wish – now he knows exactly why she’s never shown the slightest bit of interest in anyone who’s approached her.

 

 

   “Did... did he tell you why?” Steve hesitates, speaking as softly as he dares without fear of her thinking that he is patronising her in any way, and she nods again, lashes fluttering.

 

 

   A set of tears spatter the table, a streak of misery that Steve distantly reminds himself to wipe away later.

 

 

   “He told me why,” she confirms, shakily.

 

 

   Steve doesn’t know what to say to her, doesn’t know how to reach out to her in her pain, so he keeps very still until finally she presses a damp hand to her cheek and sniffs just a little before saying,

 

 

   “He told me why, and I’m glad I went through with it, because I’ve never been able to ask that of any of the – of the _others_ , before, and...”

 

 

   She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes,

 

 

   “Even though I know now that your friend’s motives were never anything like the motives of those who went before him, it still meant a lot to me to finally be able to do that, to ask someone.”

 

 

   When she opens her eyes again, they are clear, and her voice is steady when she adds,

 

 

   “The fact that... your friend’s motives _were_ very different helped as well. I meant it when I told you that really, he isn’t so bad. There’s a difference between being misguided and being malicious.”

 

 

   Steve wonders whether that is perhaps exactly what she told Bucky.

 

 

   If it was, then Steve understands all too well that Bucky takes no comfort in the fact that whatever he did was at least nothing like as horrible as what others have apparently done to Sigyn in the past.

 

 

   That isn’t the kind of thing Bucky would accept as mitigating, if she’s told him what she’s just told Steve. If anything Bucky will have hated himself all the more for hearing that he poured pain after past terrors onto this girl without a second thought for her having to clear it all away as best she can.

 

 

   It’s a separate issue to the one he was clearly trying to work through last night with that other girl – something Steve now worries may have had disastrous after-effects – but it is an issue nonetheless and one which will be weighing heavily on Bucky’s heart.

 

 

   In fact, if Steve had to guess, he’d say that this is the main reason why Bucky has resented Steve so strongly since the ambush of a meeting Steve and Sigyn orchestrated. Steve has essentially been the architect of Bucky’s revelation that what he did had consequences beyond himself, beyond even what could be immediately seen in Sigyn or presumed from her reactions.

 

 

   If it hadn’t been for Steve, Bucky would never have had to really face up to the truth that the best he could claim where Sigyn is concerned is to merely have grated at old scars and not torn new wounds for his own gratification.

 

 

   Not much better, if at all, and knowing Bucky he’ll have seen it as being the latter.

 

 

   “I’m not sure Bucky’ll have understood the difference,” Steve tells her, mostly because he feels like he has to, and she tilts her head slightly, looking off to one side with clouded eyes.

 

 

   “I suppose that speaks well of him, too,” she says quietly, and Steve nods.

 

 

   “He really isn’t a bad person,” he insists,

 

 

   “I know how that sounds, and you don’t have to believe it if you can’t, but...”

 

 

   “I do believe it,” Sigyn tells him with soft certainty, turning her gaze on him again,

 

 

   “I saw it for myself, Steve, so I do believe it. It’s just that nothing’s ever so straightforward as good people and bad people – good people do awful things and awful people do good things. We can only really look at how everyone learns from what they’ve done.”

 

 

   She seems to resettle in her seat for a moment, and then she continues,

 

 

   “Your friend seems to have learnt from his mistakes and seems to mean to go on learning from them. That’s commendable. I have learnt that I can weather this sort of thing without breaking entirely, and that Loki and I need to have a serious discussion about giving each other room to feel and the freedom to occasionally take risks.”

 

 

   She is smiling now, and her eyes are alight with it as she says,

 

 

   “And I promise that I have learnt that I shouldn’t ever try and involve you in my secrets, Steve. I really have. I can’t thank you enough for helping me sort all of this out – for what you’ve done for me – but I shan’t ever do it ever again. It isn’t fair to you.”

 

 

   “Hey, it was my choice, remember?” Steve insists with a heartfelt smile,

 

 

   “And I’ve learnt that if there ever is a next time, I can say no, and I will, so we’re going to be just fine. I’m just glad you and Loki are going to talk things out – I tried to tell him that communication was important when I spoke to him last night, and he just... _looked_ at me.”

 

 

   Sigyn nods sympathetically, both hands around her cup again.

 

 

   “I know all about the look,” she assures him,

 

 

   “And I think it’s going to take a lot more than he and I talking some things over to cure him of that.”

 

 

   “Well...” Steve says, shy and unsure whether he should say this at all but feeling rather as though he can’t _not_ ,

 

 

   “It’s not just you anymore.”

 

 

   Her eyes glow and her lips curve upwards beautifully.

 

 

   “No, it’s not,” she agrees,

 

 

   “And I’ve told Loki so. As far as I’m concerned you and I have every right to speak to one another.”

 

 

   “That’s what friends do,” Steve ventures, glad of the way she nods.

 

 

   “You know, I really can’t tell you how I appreciate it – not just that you’ve thought about this, but the fact that you would, as if that’s just completely natural to you, this idea that how important I am to Loki translates into me being important to you...”

 

 

   She shakes back her hair and blinks up at the ceiling, drawing a fresh breath,

 

 

   “It’s just... so unexpected, and so... That you’ve actually given serious thought to how Loki and I interact... I never could have hoped for that in someone, you see. For Loki. And here you are talking about it like you never could have dreamed of doing otherwise. It’s extraordinary and scary and marvellous all at once, and I’m just... grateful. That you have thought about it. That this matters enough to you that you would.”

 

 

   Her smile is soft around the words,

 

 

   “You know you give me more credit for knowing my own limits than Loki does? I know it’s because he’s frightened that I’ll go too far too soon, but still. It means a great deal.”

 

 

   She seems a little less certain in adding,

 

 

   “And it means a great deal to me that you’d consider us friends, even after what I put you through.”

 

 

   “I could have backed out anytime,” Steve insists,

 

 

   “I chose not to. I had my own reasons, and it’s done. We’re all okay – ” he briefly thinks of his mother speaking to Bucky on the phone earlier,

 

 

   “ – or getting there, and for what it’s worth, I feel like we did what we could with what we had.”

 

 

   “Still,” she says,

 

 

   “Thank you. I’m glad you’re in our lives.”

 

 

   Steve isn’t sure he can imagine a higher compliment from her, and he can hear that in the tightness of his own voice when he replies,

 

 

   “Glad to be here.”

 

 

   Her face is radiant even through the traces of tears and the remnants of a distressed flush, but her tone is just kind and even as usual as she rises and says,

 

 

   “Thank you for seeing me. I know I shouldn’t have dropped in unexpected like this, but thank you for everything, Steve. Really.”

 

 

   He rises with her, smiles back, and tells her sincerely,

 

 

   “It’s fine, just... maybe give me a little notice next time?”

 

 

   Her eyes grow very serious.

 

 

   “I promise I will,” she declares,

 

 

   “I never would have done it if I hadn’t been in such a state. I apologise for the inconvenience.”

 

 

   “You’re not inconvenient,” Steve assures her,

 

 

   “You or Loki. Difficult, maybe, but not inconvenient.”

 

 

   “I’m glad your sass reflex at least hasn’t suffered from this whole affair,” she fires back with good humour, and Steve grins.

 

 

   “I don’t think there’s a whole lot that could make much of a difference to that,” he acknowledges,

 

 

   “Lord knows my mom’s wished for years that I’d learn when not to say just what doesn’t need saying but if I ever got that lesson I haven’t learnt it right yet.”

 

 

   “I happen to disagree that these things don’t need saying,” Sigyn informs him,

 

 

   “I think we could all use a little more honest cheek in our lives and maybe the ones who don’t feel the same are precisely those who need it most.”

 

 

   Steve reads the unspoken in her face, in the shadow of her smile, the repetition of what she’d told him about his attitude being just the thing to counter Loki’s sharpness, and it’s oddly comforting.

 

 

   “Maybe you’re right,” he allows, leading her out of the kitchen and back into the hall.

 

 

   He can see her regrouping, the dabs at her eyes and face reminding him of Loki’s similar motions last night, only this time it looks like replacing torn-away armour after a battle rather than smoothing the ruffled edges of a coverlet after an unplanned romp, and when she turns to face him properly just before the door, there’s a definite tenderness to her features as she takes stock of him.

 

 

   “Thank you,” she says again, heartfelt and warm, and Steve grins.

 

 

   “Anytime,” he promises, and she moves to allow him to let her out, her bottom lip sucked between her teeth just slightly as if she’s giving thought to one last thing she wants to say before she says goodbye for now, but when she’s standing there on the doorstep with her hair lifting with the hesitant breeze at the seams of her silhouette against the greyed late morning light, she doesn’t say anything.

 

 

   Instead, she leans in and embraces him, the furthest thing from the way she clung when he’d opened the door on her earlier, not a trace of despair or contrition in her weight or hands. What’s replaced that is something more akin to the gentle affection Steve knows so well from his mother’s hugs, only a little less close, and strangely fiercer.

 

 

   If Steve had to guess, he’d say that Sigyn is the kind of person whose hugs are whole treatises writ in pressure and nearness, and although he hasn’t any hope that he could decode this one with anything like the ease that Loki could likely employ if similarly situated, he feels as though he’s getting the general impression.

 

 

   Thanks. A display of decided-upon affection. Recognition that they have mended fences between them. A physical apology for her earlier behaviour.

 

 

   Steve is confident enough to lightly rest his arms around her in return, just across her shoulders and the slightness just before the tapering of her lower back, and she makes a quiet, pleased sound and retreats easily, the smile on her face now quite like the ones he’s seen her bestow upon Loki. Fond and sweet and open.

 

 

   He’s reading the last of that when his peripheral vision collaborates with his hearing to let him know that there is a vehicle coming down the street, and Sigyn says,

 

 

   “Thank you, Steve. Take care, alright? I’ll speak to you soon. And don’t worry about Loki – he’s not at all really angry with you anymore.”

 

 

   “You’re welcome, thanks,” he replies, trying to keep his eyes from sliding off to the point behind her that he knows is his mother’s car about to pull into their driveway,

 

 

   “Tell him I said hey?”

 

 

   She nods and backs away, turning without facing the parking car, shimmering down the path and to her own vehicle, thankfully parked at the curb and well away from Steve’s driveway.

 

 

   Steve’s driveway, where the sound of two car doors opening coincide perfectly with the sound of Sigyn unlocking hers, and all three doors are shut at once in a moment of symmetry that Steve hears as a single mocking clap from God at the end of this act.

 

 

   **_Exit the fairy princess in her Mercedes, stage right._ **

 

 

   **_Enter Steve’s mother with an arm around Bucky, stage left._ **

 

 

   Steve turns to watch them, meets his mother’s eyes.

 

 

   Her forehead is puckered in the barest hint of a frown, but there is no censure in her face for Steve, and he is so grateful for this that it leaves him far too open to the shock of what he sees in Bucky’s.

 

 

   They draw level with Steve and his mother leans in to kiss his cheek and murmur,

 

 

   “We’ll talk later baby, I have to get this one upstairs,” perfectly calm and in control, while Steve trails after her and the wretched creature tucked under her arm as if Bucky doesn’t have inches on Mrs. Rogers with some to spare.

 

 

   Bucky looks as though he’s been hauled out of a dumpster, lightly brushed down, and punched in the stomach for effect.

 

 

   His face is empty except for the sick hollows around his eyes and the glazed horror in them that should be impossible what with the tears sliding down his cheeks.

 

   The way Steve’s mother directs him into the house and up the stairs is like watching someone try to dance with a person who has gone blind only recently and has yet to come to terms with any part of it.

 

 

  Steve closes and locks the front door, hovers in the hallway, finally picks himself up enough to follow his mother and Bucky up the stairs. He can hear retching, and Mrs. Rogers slips out of the bathroom on the landing and down the stairs again. Steve goes nowhere near the bathroom, choosing instead to enter his own room and just leave his door open, dithering slightly with smoothing out his bed linen and then hesitating at his desk when he hears his mother come back up, go from landing to guest room to landing to bathroom again.

 

 

   By the time the bathroom door opens, Bucky is propped up at Sarah Rogers’ side, head hanging, hair dripping wet, and Steve looks up from the sketchbook in his hand to his mother’s face, and she shakes her head very briefly before walking Bucky to the guest room and closing the door with a soft click.

 

 

   ‘ _Later_ ’ is probably going to mean much later.

 

 

   Reconsidering, Steve lays aside the sketchbook and his pencil and reaches for the pastels.

 

 

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is interested, I have recently set up a Tumblog for things relating to my writing. There is and will be a good deal of very varied content related to this series. I will also be taking questions relating to my writing.
> 
> The URL is valkyriens-extranummer.tumblr.com


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